SPAB

About SPAB

In seeking to track the performance of the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index (the “Index”), the Fund employs a sampling strategy, which means that the Fund is not required to purchase all of the securities represented in the Index. Instead, the Fund may purchase a subset of the securities in the Index in an effort to hold a portfolio of securities with generally the same risk and return characteristics of the Index. The quantity of holdings in the Fund will be based on a number of factors, including asset size of the Fund. Based on its analysis of these factors, SSGA Funds Management, Inc. (“SSGA FM” or the “Adviser”), the investment adviser to the Fund, either may invest the Fund's assets in a subset of securities in the Index or may invest the Fund's assets in substantially all of the securities represented in the Index in approximately the same proportions as the Index, as determined by the Adviser to be in the best interest of the Fund in pursuing its objective.Under normal market conditions, the Fund generally invests substantially all, but at least 80%, of its total assets in the securities comprising the Index and in securities that the Adviser determines have economic characteristics that are substantially identical to the economic characteristics of the securities that comprise the Index. TBA Transactions (as defined below) are included within the above-noted investment policy. In addition, in seeking to track the Index, the Fund may invest in debt securities that are not included in the Index. The Fund may also invest in cash and cash equivalents or money market instruments (including money market funds advised by the Adviser) for cash management purposes. In seeking to track the Index, the Fund's assets may be concentrated in an industry or group of industries, but only to the extent that the Index concentrates in a particular industry or group of industries. The Fund may use derivatives, including credit default swaps and credit default index swaps, to obtain investment exposure that the Adviser expects to correlate closely with the Index, or a portion of the Index, and in managing cash flows.The Index is designed to measure the performance of the U.S. dollar denominated investment grade bond market, which includes investment grade (must be Baa3/BBB- or higher using the middle rating of Moody's Investors Service, Inc., S&P Global Ratings, and Fitch Ratings Inc.) government bonds, investment grade corporate bonds, mortgage pass-through securities, commercial mortgage backed securities and other asset backed securities that are publicly for sale in the United States. The securities in the Index must have at least 1 year remaining to maturity and must have $300 million or more of outstanding face value. Asset backed securities must have a minimum deal size of $500 million and a minimum tranche size of $25 million. For commercial mortgage backed securities, the original aggregate transaction must have a minimum deal size of $500 million, and a minimum tranche size of $25 million; the aggregate outstanding transaction sizes must be at least $300 million to remain in the Index. In addition, the securities must be U.S. dollar denominated, fixed rate, non-convertible, and taxable. Certain types of securities, such as flower bonds, targeted investor notes, and state and local government series bonds are excluded from the Index. Also excluded from the Index are structured notes with embedded swaps or other special features, private placements, floating rate securities and Eurobonds. The Index is market capitalization weighted and the securities in the Index are updated on the last business day of each month. As of July 31, 2024, there were 13,627 securities in the Index.As of July 31, 2024, approximately 25.56% of the bonds represented in the Index were U.S. agency mortgage pass-through securities. U.S. agency mortgage pass-through securities are securities issued by entities such as Government National Mortgage Association (“GNMA”) and Federal National Mortgage Association (“FNMA”) that are backed by pools of mortgages. Transactions in mortgage pass-through securities may occur through standardized contracts for future delivery in which the exact mortgage pools to be delivered are not specified until a few days prior to settlement, referred to as a “to-be-announced transaction” or “TBA Transaction.” In a TBA Transaction, the buyer and seller agree upon general trade parameters such as agency, settlement date, par amount and price. The actual pools delivered generally are determined two days prior to the settlement date; however, it is not anticipated that the Fund will receive pools, but instead will participate in rolling TBA Transactions. The Fund expects to enter into such contracts on a regular basis. The Fund, pending settlement of such contracts, will invest its assets in high-quality, liquid short term instruments, including shares of affiliated money market funds.The Index is sponsored by Bloomberg Index Services Limited (the “Index Provider”), which is not affiliated with the Fund or the Adviser. The Index Provider determines the composition of the Index, relative weightings of the securities in the Index and publishes information regarding the market value of the Index.