| Dreyfus/Standish Global Fixed Income Fund | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Fund Summary | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Investment Objective | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The fund seeks to maximize total return while realizing a market level of income consistent with preserving principal and liquidity. |
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| Fees and Expenses | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy and hold shares of the fund. You may qualify for sales charge discounts if you and your family invest, or agree to invest in the future, at least $50,000 in certain funds in the Dreyfus Family of Funds. More information about these and other discounts is available from your financial professional and in the Shareholder Guide section beginning on page 11 of this prospectus and in the How to Buy Shares section and the Additional Information About How to Buy Shares section beginning on page II-1 and page III-1, respectively, of the fund's Statement of Additional Information. |
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| Shareholder Fees (fees paid directly from your investment) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Example | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the fund with the cost of investing in other mutual funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all of your shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the fund's operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be: |
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| You would pay the following expenses if you did not redeem your shares: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Portfolio Turnover | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or "turns over" its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the example, affect the fund's performance. During the most recent fiscal year, the fund's portfolio turnover rate was 245.46% of the average value of its portfolio. |
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| Principal Investment Strategy | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
To pursue its goal, the fund normally invests at least 80% of its net assets, plus any borrowings for investment purposes, in U.S. dollar and non-U.S. dollar-denominated fixed-income securities of governments and companies located in various countries, including emerging markets. The fund generally invests in eight or more countries, but always invests in at least three countries, one of which may be the United States. The fund may invest up to 25% of its assets in emerging markets generally and up to 7% of its net assets in any single emerging market country. At times, the fund may invest a substantial part of its net assets in any one country. The fund will hedge most, but not necessarily all, of its foreign currency exposure to protect the U.S. dollar value of the fund's assets. The fund normally invests primarily in fixed-income securities rated, at the time of purchase, investment grade (i.e., Baa/BBB or higher) or the unrated equivalent as determined by The Dreyfus Corporation. The fund, however, may invest up to 25% of its assets in securities rated, at the time of purchase, below investment grade ("high yield" or "junk" bonds), but not rated lower than B, or the unrated equivalent as determined by The Dreyfus Corporation. There are no restrictions on the dollar-weighted average maturity or average effective duration of the fund's portfolio or on the maturities or durations of the individual fixed-income securities the fund may purchase. The portfolio managers focus on identifying undervalued government bond markets, currencies, sectors and securities and de-emphasize the use of interest rate forecasting. The portfolio managers look for fixed-income securities with the potential for credit upgrades, unique structural characteristics or innovative features. The portfolio managers select securities by using fundamental economic research and quantitative analysis to allocate assets among countries and currencies, and by focusing on sectors and individual securities that appear to be relatively undervalued and actively trading among sectors. The fund may, but is not required to, use derivatives, such as options, futures, options on futures, forward contracts and swaps, as a substitute for investing directly in an underlying asset, to increase returns, to manage market, foreign currency and/or duration or interest rate risks, or as part of a hedging strategy. |
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| Principal Risks | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit. It is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency. It is not a complete investment program. The fund's share price fluctuates, sometimes dramatically, which means you could lose money. · Credit risk. Failure of an issuer to make timely interest or principal payments, or a decline or perception of a decline in the credit quality of a bond, can cause a bond's price to fall, potentially lowering the fund's share price. The lower a bond's credit rating, the greater the chance – in the rating agency's opinion – that the bond issuer will default or fail to meet its payment obligations. High yield ("junk") bonds involve greater credit risk, including the risk of default, than investment grade bonds, and are considered predominantly speculative with respect to the issuer's continuing ability to make principal and interest payments. The prices of high yield bonds can fall dramatically in response to bad news about the issuer or its industry, or the economy in general. · Interest rate risk. Prices of bonds tend to move inversely with changes in interest rates. Typically, a rise in rates will adversely affect bond prices and, accordingly, the fund's share price. The longer the effective maturity and duration of the fund's fixed-income portfolio, the more the fund's share price is likely to react to interest rates. For example, the market price of a fixed-income security with a duration of three years would be expected to decline 3% if interest rates rose 1%. Conversely, the market price of the same security would be expected to increase 3% if interest rates fell 1%. · Market risk. The market value of a security may decline due to general market conditions that are not specifically related to a particular company, such as real or perceived adverse economic conditions, changes in the outlook for corporate earnings, changes in interest or currency rates or adverse investor sentiment generally. A security's market value also may decline because of factors that affect a particular industry or industries, such as labor shortages or increased production costs and competitive conditions within an industry, or factors that affect a particular company, such as management performance, financial leverage, and reduced demand for the company's products or services. · Market sector risk. The fund may significantly overweight or underweight certain companies, industries or market sectors, which may cause the fund's performance to be more or less sensitive to developments affecting those companies, industries or sectors. · Liquidity risk. When there is little or no active trading market for specific types of securities, it can become more difficult to sell the securities at or near their perceived value. In such a market, the value of such securities and the fund's share price may fall dramatically. Investments in foreign securities, particularly those of issuers located in emerging markets, tend to have greater exposure to liquidity risk than domestic securities. · Foreign investment risk. To the extent the fund invests in foreign securities, the fund's performance will be influenced by political, social and economic factors affecting investments in foreign issuers. Special risks associated with investments in foreign issuers include exposure to currency fluctuations, less liquidity, less developed or less efficient trading markets, lack of comprehensive company information, political and economic instability and differing auditing and legal standards. Investments denominated in foreign currencies are subject to the risk that such currencies will decline in value relative to the U.S. dollar and affect the value of these investments held by the fund. To the extent the fund's investments are concentrated in one or a limited number of foreign countries, the fund's performance could be more volatile than that of more geographically diversified funds. · Foreign currency risk. Investments in foreign currencies are subject to the risk that those currencies will decline in value relative to the U.S. dollar or, in the case of hedged positions, that the U.S. dollar will decline relative to the currency being hedged. Currency exchange rates may fluctuate significantly over short periods of time. Foreign currencies are also subject to risks caused by inflation, interest rates, budget deficits and low savings rates, political factors and government intervention and controls. · Emerging market risk. The securities of issuers located in emerging markets tend to be more volatile and less liquid than securities of issuers located in more mature economies, and emerging markets generally have less diverse and less mature economic structures and less stable political systems than those of developed countries. The securities of issuers located or doing substantial business in emerging markets are often subject to rapid and large changes in price. · Derivatives risk. A small investment in derivatives could have a potentially large impact on the fund's performance. The use of derivatives involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in the underlying assets. Derivatives can be highly volatile, illiquid and difficult to value. Certain types of derivatives, including swaps, forward contracts and other over-the-counter transactions, involve greater risks than the underlying obligations because, in addition to general market risks, they are subject to illiquidity risk, counterparty risk, credit risk and pricing risk. · Portfolio turnover risk. The fund may engage in short-term trading, which could produce higher transaction costs and taxable distributions, and lower the fund's after-tax performance. The fund's forward roll transactions will increase its portfolio turnover rate. · Non-diversification risk. The fund is non-diversified, which means that the fund may invest a relatively high percentage of its assets in a limited number of issuers. Therefore, the fund's performance may be more vulnerable to changes in the market value of a single issuer or group of issuers and more susceptible to risks associated with a single economic, political or regulatory occurrence than a diversified fund. |
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| Performance | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The following bar chart and table provide some indication of the risks of investing in the fund. The bar chart shows changes in the performance of the fund's Class I shares from year to year. The table compares the average annual total returns of the fund's shares to those of a broad measure of market performance. The fund's past performance (before and after taxes) is not necessarily an indication of how the fund will perform in the future. Sales charges, if any, are not reflected in the bar chart, and if those charges were included, returns would have been less than those shown. More recent performance information may be available at www.dreyfus.com. Since the fund's Class Y shares are new, past performance information is not available for Class Y shares as of the date of this prospectus. Class Y shares would have had substantially similar annual returns as Class A, C and I shares because each share class is invested in the same portfolio of securities and the annual returns would have differed only to the extent that the classes do not have the same expenses. |
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| Year-by-Year Total Returns as of 12/31 each year (%) Class I | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Best Quarter Worst Quarter The year-to-date total return of the fund’s Class I shares as of March 31, 2013 was 0.84%. |
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| Average Annual Total Returns (as of 12/31/12) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
After-tax performance is shown only for Class I shares. After-tax performance of the fund's other share classes will vary. After-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates, and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on the investor's tax situation and may differ from those shown, and the after-tax returns shown are not relevant to investors who hold their shares through tax-deferred arrangements such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts. For the fund's Class A and C shares, periods prior to December 2, 2009 reflect the performance of the fund's Class I shares adjusted to reflect any applicable sales charges. Such performance figures have not been adjusted to reflect applicable class fees and expenses; if such fees and expenses had been reflected, the performance shown for Class A and C for such periods would have been lower. |
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