Columbia Thermostat Fund Celebrates 20-Year Anniversary

A Lipper award-winning,1 multi-asset solution designed to take the emotion out of investing

BOSTON--()--Columbia Threadneedle Investments announced that the Columbia Thermostat Fund has reached its 20-year anniversary. Since its inception, the fund has experienced strong long-term performance and currently ranks within the top quintile of Morningstar’s Tactical Allocation category for the 3-, 5- and 15-year periods ending September 30, 2022. Rated overall 5-stars by Morningstar,2 the Columbia Thermostat Fund is designed to provide shareholders with consistent total returns throughout various market environments.

The fund follows a systematic, rules-based investment process that rebalances automatically based on the movement of the S&P 500 Index. When the stock market moves higher, the fund rebalances by selling stocks and buying bonds. When the stock market sells off and moves lower, the fund buys stocks and sells bonds.

Anwiti Bahuguna, Senior Portfolio Manager and Head of Multi-Asset Strategy at Columbia Threadneedle Investments, is lead manager of the fund and credits Ralph Wanger, a renowned investor who launched the fund 20 years ago, with designing the effective strategy. Bahuguna and co-manager Alex Rivas apply Wanger’s systematic investment approach to the fund and, like a thermostat, it’s automated to adapt to the temperature of the market.

“What I love most about the fund is that it reflects the pure essence of investing, to buy low and sell high,” said Bahuguna. “We’ve found that many investors are tempted to buy as markets get hot and sell as things cool down, which we all know can lead to poor investment outcomes. This fund is designed to take the emotion out of investing by helping investors navigate the market with the goal of long-term total returns.”

This approach can be particularly helpful in volatile and down markets as it prevents investors from making impulse decisions. The purpose of the fund is to help investors reach their long-term financial goals and feel financially stable, even when the market seems anything but stable. The fund closely monitors valuations and automatically rebalances based on the level of the S&P 500. Bahuguna and Rivas use a straightforward approach, including a regular annual review process to determine the current market state and set allocation tables. Composed of competitive underlying investments, the fund’s stock and bond allocations can range from 10-90%, moving in 5% increments, depending on market conditions.

Ratings and rankings

Time Period

Overall

1-Year

3-Year

5-Year

10-Year

15-Year

Percentile Rank

 

63

13

9

26

8

# of Peers

260

259

235

209

124

41

Star Rating

5-stars

 

5-stars

5-stars

4-stars

 

Category: Tactical Allocation as of September 30, 2022

Ratings and rankings shown for Institutional Share Class. Other classes may have different performance characteristics and may have different ratings. Morningstar Ratings are based on a Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return measure. Morningstar Rankings are based on annualized total returns.

About Columbia Threadneedle Investments

Columbia Threadneedle Investments is a leading global asset manager that provides a broad range of investment strategies and solutions for individual, institutional and corporate clients around the world. With more than 2,500 people, including over 650 investment professionals based in North America, Europe and Asia, we manage $598 billion of assets across developed and emerging market equities, fixed income, asset allocation solutions and alternatives.3

Columbia Threadneedle Investments is the global asset management group of Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE: AMP). For more information, please visit columbiathreadneedleus.com. Follow us on Twitter.

Columbia Threadneedle Investments (Columbia Threadneedle) is the global brand name of the Columbia and Threadneedle group of companies.

1 Source: Refinitiv. The Lipper Fund Awards are based on the Lipper Leader for Consistent Return rating, which is a risk-adjusted performance measure calculated over 36, 60 and 120 months. The highest Lipper Leader® for Consistent Return (Effective Return) value within each eligible classification determines the fund classification winner over three, five or 10 years. For a detailed explanation, please review the Lipper Leaders methodology document. The Columbia Thermostat Fund was awarded for best 3-year performance out of 148 fund in the Flexible Portfolio Funds category, for the period ended 12/31/20, Class Institutional 3 shares.

2 Columbia Thermostat Fund earns a five-star Overall Morningstar Rating among 260 funds in the Tactical Allocation category as of September 30, 2022 based on a Morningstar risk-adjusted return measure.

3 As of June 30, 2022. Includes all assets managed by entities in the Columbia and Threadneedle group of companies.

The Lipper Fund Awards are based on the Lipper Leader for Consistent Return rating, which is a risk-adjusted performance measure calculated over 36, 60 and 120 months. The highest Lipper Leader® for Consistent Return (Effective Return) value within each eligible classification determines the fund classification winner over three, five or 10 years. For a detailed explanation, please review the Lipper Leaders methodology document.

Investors should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of a mutual fund carefully before investing. For a free prospectus or a summary prospectus, which contains this and other important information about the funds, visit www.columbiathreadneedleus.com/investor/. Read the prospectus carefully before investing.

Market risk may affect a single issuer, sector of the economy, industry or the market as a whole. The fund’s investment in other funds subjects it to the investment performance (positive or negative), risks and expenses of these underlying funds. There are risks associated with fixed-income investments, including credit risk, market risk, interest rate risk and prepayment and extension risk. In general, bond prices fall when interest rates rise and vice versa. This effect is more pronounced for longer-term securities. Non- investment-grade (high-yield or junk) securities present greater price volatility and more risk to principal and income than higher rated securities. Foreign investments subject the fund to risks, including political, economic, market, social and others within a particular country, as well as to currency instabilities and less stringent financial and accounting standards generally applicable to U.S. issuers. Risks are enhanced for emerging market issuers.

Standard & Poor’s 500 Index: Widely regarded as the best single gauge of the U.S. equities market, this capitalization-weighted index includes a representative sample of 500 leading companies in leading industries of the U.S. economy.

It is not possible to invest directly in an index.

Morningstar Percentile Rankings are based on the average annual total returns of the funds in the category for the periods stated. They do not include sales charges or redemption fees but do include operating expenses and the reinvestment of dividends and capital gains distributions. Share class rankings vary due to different expenses. If sales charges or redemption fees were included, total returns would be lower.

For each fund with at least a three-year history, Morningstar calculates a Morningstar Rating™ used to rank the fund against other funds in the same category. It is calculated based on a Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return measure that accounts for variation in a fund’s monthly excess performance, without any adjustments for loads (front-end, deferred, or redemption fees), placing more emphasis on downward variations and rewarding consistent performance. Exchange-traded funds and open-ended mutual funds are considered a single population for comparative purposes. The top 10% of funds in each 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. (Each share class is counted as a fraction of one fund within this scale and rated separately, which may cause slight variations in the distribution percentages.) The Overall Morningstar Rating for a fund is derived from a weighted average of the performance figures associated with its three-, five- and ten-year (if applicable) Morningstar Rating metrics.

©2022 Morningstar, Inc. All rights reserved. The Morningstar information contained herein: (1) is proprietary to Morningstar and/or its content providers; (2) may not be copied or distributed; and (3) is not warranted to be accurate, complete or timely. Neither Morningstar nor its content providers are responsible for any damages or losses arising from any use of this information.

Columbia Thermostat Fund is distributed by Columbia Management Investment Distributors, Inc., member FINRA, and managed by Columbia Wanger Asset Management, LLC.

© 2022 Columbia Management Investment Advisers, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Contacts

Lisa Feuerbach
617.897.9344
Lisa.feuerbach@ampf.com

Contacts

Lisa Feuerbach
617.897.9344
Lisa.feuerbach@ampf.com