Overview
Ultra® Fund seeks to invest in highly profitable, quality, large-cap companies with the capacity for future growth.
A Large-Company Growth Strategy
A risk-aware, large-cap portfolio of 60-90 companies we believe show a compelling combination of strong fundamentals and growth characteristics.
A Focus on Sustained Growth
We focus on recognizing early signs of business improvement to identify companies we believe are near the beginning of a cycle of improving earnings and expanding stock prices.
Emphasizing Stock Selection
Capitalizing on the team's research insights and active risk management, we intend stock selection to drive outperformance versus the benchmark, not macro or sector factors.
Key Facts
Investment Objective | Seeks long-term capital growth. |
Inception Date | 11/02/1981 |
Morningstar Category | Large Growth |
Benchmark | Russell 1000 Growth IndexA |
Total Assets | $18,668,222,663 As of 09/30/2023 |
Total Holdings | 63 As of 08/31/2023 |
Distribution Frequency | Annual |
Morningstar Overall Rating Based on risk-adjusted return | Out of 1,122 funds. Large Growth category As of 08/31/2023 |
Fees
Gross Expense Ratio | 0.95% |
Net Expense Ratio | 0.91% |
Minimums
All Accounts With $100 monthly automatic investment | $500 |
IRA & CESAs With no automatic investment | $1,000 |
All other accounts With no automatic investment | $2,500 |
Trading Information
Ticker | TWCUX |
CUSIP | 025083882 |
For each fund with at least a three-year history, Morningstar calculates a Morningstar Rating™ based on a Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return measure that accounts for variation in a fund's monthly performance, placing more emphasis on downward variations and rewarding consistent performance.
Performance
Data reflects past performance, assumes reinvestment of dividends and capital gains and is no guarantee of future results. Current performance may be higher or lower than data shown. Investment return and principal value fluctuates. Redemption value may be more or less than original cost. Returns less than one year are not annualized.
Extraordinary performance is attributable in part to unusually favorable market conditions and may not be repeated or consistently achieved in the future.
Average annual total returns illustrate the annual compounded returns that would have produced the cumulative total return if the fund's performance had remained constant throughout the period indicated. Returns for periods less than one year are not annualized. For periods prior to the inception of a class, performance is for the oldest class, restated with applicable fees, if any.
Ultra Fund
Russell 1000 Growth Index
Data reflects past performance, assumes reinvestment of dividends and capital gains and is no guarantee of future results. Current performance may be higher or lower than data shown. Investment return and principal value fluctuates. Redemption value may be more or less than original cost. Returns less than one year are not annualized.
Extraordinary performance is attributable in part to unusually favorable market conditions and may not be repeated or consistently achieved in the future.
Historical Distribution (CSV)
Ratings and Risk
Overall | Out of 1,122 funds. Large Growth category |
3 Year | Out of 1,122 funds |
5 Year | Out of 1,035 funds |
10 Year | Out of 803 funds |
Investment Style
For each fund with at least a three-year history, Morningstar calculates a Morningstar Rating™ based on a Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return measure that accounts for variation in a fund's monthly performance, placing more emphasis on downward variations and rewarding consistent performance.
Morningstar Ratings and Investment Style
The Morningstar Rating™ for funds, or "star rating", is calculated for managed products (including mutual funds, variable annuity and variable life subaccounts, exchange-traded funds, closed-end funds, and separate accounts) with at least a three-year history. Exchange-traded funds and open-ended mutual funds are considered a single population for comparative purposes. It is calculated based on a Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return measure that accounts for variation in a managed product's monthly excess performance, placing more emphasis on downward variations and rewarding consistent performance. The Morningstar Rating does not include any adjustment for sales loads. The top 10% of products in each product category receive 5 stars, the next 22.5% receive 4 stars, the next 35% receive 3 stars, the next 22.5% receive 2 stars, and the bottom 10% receive 1 star. The Overall Morningstar Rating for a managed product is derived from a weighted average of the performance figures associated with its three-, five-, and 10-year (if applicable) Morningstar Rating metrics. The weights are: 100% three-year rating for 36-59 months of total returns, 60% five-year rating/40% three-year rating for 60-119 months of total returns, and 50% 10-year rating/30% five-year rating/20% three-year rating for 120 or more months of total returns. While the 10-year overall star rating formula seems to give the most weight to the 10- year period, the most recent three-year period actually has the greatest impact because it is included in all three rating periods.
Morningstar Investment Style Box™: The Morningstar Investment Style Box™ reveals a fund's investment strategy. For the equity holdings in the fund's portfolio, the vertical axis shows the market capitalization of the stocks owned and the horizontal axis shows investment style (value, blend or growth).
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investment returns will fluctuate and it is possible to lose money.
Portfolio
As of 08/31/202363 Equity Issues
% of Top Portfolio Holdings
56.96%
Team
Firm Start
1998
Industry Start
1994
Firm Start
2002
Industry Start
2002
Firm Start
2007
Industry Start
2003
Resources
The advisor has agreed to waive a portion of the fund's management fee such that the management fee does not exceed .91% for Investor, A, C and R Classes, .71% for I and R5 Classes, and .56% for Y and R6 Classes. The advisor expects this waiver arrangement to continue until February 29, 2024, and cannot terminate it prior to such date without the approval of the Board of Directors. Returns or yields for the fund would have been lower if a portion of the management fee had not been waived. Review the annual or semiannual report for the most current information.
The advisor has agreed to waive the G Class's management fee in its entirety. The advisor expects this fee waiver to remain in effect permanently and cannot terminate it without the approval of the Board of Directors.
The value and/or returns of a portfolio will fluctuate with market and economic conditions.
The fund is subject to potentially greater short-term price volatility than that associated with an average stock fund.
Please see the prospectus for details about sales charges.
The gross expense ratio is the fund's total annual operating costs, expressed as a percentage of the fund's average net assets for a given time period. It is gross of any fee waivers or expense reimbursement. The net expense ratio is the expense ratio after the application of any waivers or reimbursement. This is the actual ratio that investors paid during the fund's most recent fiscal year. Please see the prospectus for more information.
Investor Class Shares: Minimum initial investment is $1,000 for IRA and CESA accounts, and $2,500 for non-retirement accounts, but these minimums are waived with an initial investment of at least $500 per account and automatic investments of at least $100 per month. Non-Retirement Accounts: If your account balance falls below the minimum, or if you cancel your automatic monthly investment plan prior to reaching the minimum, American Century Investments may redeem the account and send the proceeds to you. Prior to doing so, we will notify you and give you 90 days to meet the minimum or reinstate your automatic monthly investment plan.
Only Investor Class shares are made available to investors directly. Advisor, A, C, I, and Y Classes of shares are only available for purchase by institutions or other financial intermediaries. R, R5, and R6 Classes of shares are only available for purchase by group employer-sponsored retirement plans. Review definitions and minimums for all share classes.
Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) Criteria
The risk and/or opportunity to a company's market valuation resulting from environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors. Depending on the sector, environmental and social factors include, but are not limited to, 1) climate change, 2) water stress, 3) product safety and quality (supply chain and manufacturing), 4) cybersecurity and data privacy, and 5) human capital management. Regardless of the sector, governance factors include: 1) business (mis)conduct, 2) board composition, independence and entrenchment, 3) accounting practices, 4) ownership structure, and 5) executive pay-for-sustainability performance alignment.
Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) Integration
The structural incorporation of financially-relevant information on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors into the investment decision-making process.
Russell 1000® Growth Index
Measures the performance of those Russell 1000 Index companies (the 1,000 largest publicly traded U.S. companies, based on total market capitalization) with higher price-to-book ratios and higher forecasted growth values.
Definitions
Alpha: Typically used to represent the value added or subtracted by active investment management strategies. It shows how an actively managed investment portfolio performed compared with the expected portfolio returns produced simply by benchmark volatility (beta) and market changes. A positive alpha shows that an investment manager has been able to capture more of the upside movement in the benchmark while softening the downswings. A negative alpha means that the manager's strategies have caught more benchmark downside than upside.
Beta: Standard measurement of potential investment risk and return. It shows how volatile a security's or an investment portfolio's returns have been compared with their respective benchmark indices. A benchmark index's beta always equals 1. A security or portfolio with a beta greater than 1 had returns that fluctuated more, both up and down, than those of its benchmark, while a beta of less than 1 indicates less fluctuation than the benchmark.
R-Squared: Portfolio performance and risk measure that indicates how much of a portfolio's performance fluctuations were attributable to movements in the portfolio's benchmark index. R-squared can range from 0-100%. An r-squared of 100% indicates that all portfolio performance movements were attributable to movements in the benchmark index-they correlate perfectly to the benchmark. Conversely, an r-squared of 0% indicates that there is no correlation between the performance movements of the portfolio and the benchmark.
Standard Deviation: Statistical measurement of variations from the average. In financial literature, it's often used to measure risk, when risk is measured or defined in terms of volatility. In general, more risk means more volatility, and more volatility means a higher standard deviation-there's more variation from the average of the data being measured. In this context, reducing risk means seeking lower standard deviation.
Sharpe Ratio: Simple but useful risk-adjusted measure of returns, showing the amount of return (reward) earned per unit of risk from any asset with a risk component. The higher the Sharpe Ratio, the better, theoretically, the portfolio's risk-adjusted performance-portfolios with higher Sharpe Ratios tend to provide more return for the same amount of risk. The Sharpe Ratio is useful, but not perfect. It can be skewed by irregular return factors that can upset the standard deviation calculation, and it doesn't take into account the market risk (beta) exposure of the portfolio.
Investment Blend: Reflects the blend of securities owned by a fund. For example, the percentage of foreign or domestic stocks held by an equity fund or the percentage of corporate and government securities owned by a bond fund. The U.S./Foreign Convertibles grouping includes Convertible Bonds, Equity Linked Securities and Convertible Preferred securities.
Sector Weights: This value represents the sectors included in the portfolio on a percent of assets basis.
Top Holdings: This value represents the top holdings included in the portfolio on a percent of assets basis. Equity holdings are grouped to include common shares, depository receipts, rights and warrants issued by the same company. Holdings are rounded to the nearest whole number, which may result in the display of less than ten holdings.
Countries: This value represents the countries included in the portfolio on a percent of assets basis.
Regions: This value represents the regions of the country represented by the securities included in the portfolio on a percent of assets basis.
For detailed descriptions of indices or investing terms referenced above, refer to our glossary.
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