Fund Objective
The Fund’s primary investment objective is to achieve capital appreciation. The objective of income is secondary.
Fund Strategy
The Fund seeks to achieve these objectives by investing in a diversified portfolio of equity securities consisting primarily of common stocks of U.S.-based companies whose growth, cash flow, earnings, and dividend prospects are promising and whose securities are reasonably priced and have the potential for capital appreciation.
The quality securities in which the Fund invests consist primarily of dividend-paying common stocks of large-capitalization companies, i.e., companies with market capitalizations in excess of $8 billion.
Fund Highlights
The fund was created in 1953, as an institutional equity fund for New York State Savings Banks and was merged with a retail version of the fund in 2009. Several of the fund's earliest shareholders remain in the fund today.
John McCabe and Mark Trautman have co-managed the fund since 1991 (22 years) with a consistent investment philosophy as described in the Fund Strategy.
The fund tends to be less volatile than the S&P 500 Index. Over the past 15 years, the fund's beta was 28% less than the S&P 500 Index. Portfolio turnover is also exceptionally low, averaging 10% over the past 5 years.
The Fund's 10.57% average annual return since its inception 60 years ago, has outperformed the Consumer Price Index by an average of more than 6.5 percentage points per annum.