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Jan. 01, 2021
American Century ETF Trust | American Century Diversified Corporate Bond ETF
American Century® Diversified Corporate Bond ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks to provide current income.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.29%
Other Expenses
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.29%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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, that you earn 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:
1 year3 years5 years10 years
$30$93$163$369
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 rate 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 174% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
Under normal market conditions, the portfolio managers will invest at least 80% of the fund’s net assets, plus any borrowings for investment purposes, in corporate debt securities and corporate debt investments. Corporate debt investments are derivatives whose reference securities are corporate debt securities.
The fund invests primarily in U.S. dollar denominated corporate debt securities issued by U.S. and foreign entities, but may also invest in securities issued by supranational entities. Although the fund invests primarily in investment-grade debt securities, up to 35% of the fund’s net assets may be invested in high-yield securities (also referred to as “junk bonds”).
The fund also may invest in derivative instruments such as futures contracts, and swap agreements (including, but not limited to, interest rate swaps and credit default swap indexes). The fund may use derivative instruments to earn income, enhance returns, increase liquidity, manage target duration, gain exposure to certain instruments or markets, and/or hedge its exposure to particular investments.
Under normal market conditions, the weighted average duration of the fund’s portfolio is expected to be between three and seven years. The fund may engage in active and frequent trading of portfolio securities to achieve its principal investment strategies. This may cause higher transaction costs and may affect performance. It may also result in the realization and distribution of capital gains.
The fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) that does not seek to replicate the performance of a specified index. To determine whether to buy or sell a security, the portfolio managers consider, among other things, various fund requirements and standards, along with economic conditions, alternative investments, interest rates and various credit metrics.
Principal Risks
Interest Rate Risk - Investments in debt securities are also sensitive to interest rate changes. Generally, the value of debt securities and the funds that hold them decline as interest rates rise. The fund is more susceptible to interest rate changes than funds that have shorter-weighted average maturities, such as money market and short-term bond funds. A period of rising interest rates may negatively affect the fund’s performance.
Credit Risk - The inability or perceived inability of a security’s issuer to make interest and principal payments may cause the value of the security to decrease. As a result, the fund’s share price could also decrease. Changes in the credit rating of a debt security held by the fund could have a similar effect.
High-Yield Risk - Issuers of high-yield securities are more vulnerable to real or perceived economic changes (such as an economic down turn or a prolonged period of rising interest rates), political changes or adverse developments specific to an issuer. These factors may be more likely to cause an issuer of low quality bonds to default on its obligations. Investment in high-yield securities is inherently speculative.
Foreign Securities Risk - Foreign securities have certain unique risks, such as currency risk, social, political and economic risk, and foreign market and trading risk. Securities of foreign issuers may be less liquid, more volatile and harder to value than U.S. securities.
Derivatives Risk - The use of derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit and correlation risk. In addition, derivatives can create economic leverage in the fund’s portfolio, which may result in significant volatility and cause the fund to participate in losses (as well as gains) in an amount that exceeds the fund’s initial investment. Certain derivatives have the potential for unlimited loss, regardless of the size of the initial investment.
Cash Transactions Risk - The fund may effect its creations and redemptions for cash, rather than for in-kind securities. Therefore, it may be required to sell portfolio securities and subsequently recognize gains on such sales that the fund might not have recognized if it were to distribute portfolio securities in-kind. As such, investments in fund shares may be less tax-efficient than an investment in an ETF that distributes portfolio securities entirely in-kind. Cash transactions may have to be carried out over several days if the securities market is relatively illiquid and may involve considerable brokerage fees and taxes. Brokerage fees and taxes will be higher than if the fund sold and redeemed shares in-kind.
Liquidity Risk - During periods of market turbulence or unusually low trading activity, it may be necessary for the fund to sell securities at prices that could have an adverse effect on the fund. The market for lower-quality debt securities is generally less liquid than the market for higher-quality securities. Changing regulatory and market conditions, including increases in interest rates and credit spreads may adversely affect the liquidity of the fund’s investments.
High Portfolio Turnover Risk - The fund may engage in active and frequent trading of its portfolio securities. High portfolio turnover may result in increased transaction costs to the fund, including brokerage commissions, dealer mark-ups and other transaction costs on the sale of the securities and on reinvestment in other securities.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably, based on the performance of the issuers whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Authorized Participant Concentration Risk - Only an authorized participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the fund. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as authorized participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no other authorized participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to net asset value (NAV) and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.
Large Shareholder Risk - Certain shareholders, including other funds advised by the advisor, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the shares of the fund. In addition, a third party investor, the advisor or an affiliate of the advisor, an authorized participant, a market maker, or another entity may invest in the fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the fund or to facilitate the fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment, that the size of the fund would be maintained at such levels or that the fund would continue to meet applicable listing requirements. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the NYSE Arca, Inc. and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.
Principal Loss Risk - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund 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 fund’s performance from year to year. The table shows how the fund’s average annual returns for the periods shown compared with 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. For current performance information, please visit americancenturyetfs.com.
Sales charges and account fees, if applicable, are not reflected in the bar chart. If those charges were included, returns would be less than those shown.
Calendar Year Total Returns
ck0001710607-20200831_g2.jpg
Highest Performance Quarter (1Q 2019): 4.15% Lowest Performance Quarter (4Q 2019): 1.03%
As of September 30, 2020, the most recent calendar quarter end, the fund’s year-to-date return was 4.52%.
Average Annual Total Returns For the calendar year ended December 31, 2019
Average Annual Total Returns
For the calendar year ended December 31, 2019
1 yearSince InceptionInception Date
American Century Diversified Corporate Bond ETF Shares
Return Before Taxes10.06%4.32%01/11/2018
Return After Taxes on Distributions8.62%2.99%01/11/2018
Return After Taxes on Distributions and Sale of Fund Shares5.94%2.72%01/11/2018
Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Intermediate Corporate Bond Index
  (reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)
10.14%5.02%01/11/2018
American Century ETF Trust | American Century Diversified Municipal Bond ETF
American Century® Diversified Municipal Bond ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks current income that is exempt from federal income tax.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.29%
Other Expenses
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.29%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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, that you earn 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:
1 year3 years5 years10 years
$30$93$163$369
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 rate 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 23% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
The fund invests in municipal and other debt securities. Under normal market conditions, the portfolio managers invest at least 80% of the fund’s net assets, plus borrowings for investment purposes, in municipal securities with interest payments exempt from federal income tax. Some of these investments in municipal securities are not necessarily exempt from the federal alternative minimum tax.
The fund principally invests in investment-grade debt securities but may invest in high-yield securities (junk bonds). A high-yield security is one that has been rated below investment-grade or determined by the investment advisor to be of similar quality, including bonds that are in technical or monetary default. Issuers of these securities often have short financial histories or have questionable credit or have had and may continue to have problems making interest and principal payments. The portfolio managers also may buy unrated securities if they determine such securities meet the investment objective of the fund.
The fund may purchase debt securities of any duration, and the average duration of the fund will vary based on the portfolio managers’ forecast of interest rates.
Although the fund seeks current income, it also employs techniques designed to realize capital appreciation. For example, the portfolio managers may select bonds with maturities and coupon rates that position the fund for potential capital appreciation for a variety of reasons, including their view on the direction of future interest-rate movements and the potential for a credit upgrade.
The fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) that does not seek to replicate the performance of a specified index. When determining whether to buy or sell a security, portfolio managers consider, among other things, current and anticipated changes in interest rates, the credit quality of a particular issuer, comparable alternatives, general market conditions and any other factor deemed relevant by the portfolio managers.
Principal Risks
Credit Risk - Debt securities, even investment-grade debt securities, are subject to credit risk. The risk that the inability or perceived inability of a security’s issuer to make interest and principal payments may cause the value of the security to decrease. As a result, the fund’s share price could also decrease. Changes in the credit rating of a debt security held by the fund could have a similar effect. The fund’s investments may have high credit risk, which helps the fund pursue a higher yield than more conservatively managed bond funds.
Below Investment-Grade Securities Risk - Issuers of lower rated, high-yield securities are more vulnerable to real or perceived economic changes (such as an economic downturn or a prolonged period of rising interest rates), political changes, or adverse
developments specific to the issuer. Adverse economic, political and other developments may be more likely to cause an issuer of low-quality bonds to default on its obligation to pay interest and principal due under its securities. The fund may invest in securities rated below investment-grade or that are unrated, including bonds that are in technical or monetary default. By definition, the issuers of many of these securities have had and may continue to have problems making interest and principal payments.
Interest Rate Risk - When interest rates change, the fund’s share value will be affected. Generally, the value of debt securities and the funds that hold them decline as interest rates rise. Because the fund may invest in intermediate-term and long-term bonds, the fund’s interest rate risk is generally higher than for funds with shorter-weighted average maturities, such as money market and short-term bond funds. A period of rising interest rates may negatively affect the fund’s performance.
Municipal Securities Risk - Because the fund invests principally in municipal securities, it will be sensitive to events that affect municipal markets, including legislative or political changes and the financial condition of the issuers of municipal securities. The fund may have a higher level of risk than funds that invest in a larger universe of securities. Additionally, the novel coronavirus (COVID -19) pandemic has significantly stressed the financial resources of many municipal issuers, which may impair a municipal issuer’s ability to meet its financial obligations when due and could adversely impact the value of its bonds, which could negatively impact the performance of the fund.
Cash Transactions Risk - The fund may effect its creations and redemptions for cash, rather than for in-kind securities. Therefore, it may be required to sell portfolio securities and subsequently recognize gains on such sales that the fund might not have recognized if it were to distribute portfolio securities in-kind. As such, investments in fund shares may be less tax-efficient than an investment in an ETF that distributes portfolio securities entirely in-kind. Cash transactions may have to be carried out over several days if the securities market is relatively illiquid and may involve considerable brokerage fees and taxes. Brokerage fees and taxes will be higher than if the fund sold and redeemed shares in-kind.
Tax Risk - Some or all of the fund’s income may be subject to the federal alternative minimum tax. There is no guarantee that all of the fund’s income will remain exempt from federal or state income taxes. Income from municipal bonds held by a fund could be declared taxable because of unfavorable changes in tax laws, adverse interpretations by the Internal Revenue Service or state tax authorities, or noncompliant conduct of a bond issuer. The fund may sell securities that lose their tax-exempt statuses at inopportune times, which may cause tax consequences or a decrease in the fund’s value.
Liquidity Risk - During periods of market turbulence or unusually low trading activity, to meet redemptions, it may be necessary for the fund to sell securities at prices that could have an adverse effect on the fund’s share price. Changing regulatory and market conditions, including increases in interest rates and credit spreads may adversely affect the liquidity of the fund’s investments.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
Market Risk - The risk that the value of securities owned by the fund may go up and down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Authorized Participant Concentration Risk - Only an authorized participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the fund. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as authorized participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no other authorized participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to net asset value (NAV) and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.
Large Shareholder Risk - Certain shareholders, including other funds advised by the advisor, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the shares of the fund. In addition, a third party investor, the advisor or an affiliate of the advisor, an authorized participant, a market maker, or another entity may invest in the fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the fund or to facilitate the fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment, that the size of the fund would be maintained at such levels or that the fund would continue to meet applicable listing requirements. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the NYSE Arca, Inc. and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.
Principal Loss Risk - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund 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 fund’s performance from year to year. The table shows how the fund’s average annual returns for the periods shown compared with 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. For current performance information, please visit americancenturyetfs.com.
Sales charges and account fees, if applicable, are not reflected in the bar chart. If those charges were included, returns would be less than those shown.
Calendar Year Total Returns
ck0001710607-20200831_g3.jpg
Highest Performance Quarter (1Q 2019): 3.17% Lowest Performance Quarter (4Q 2019): 0.77%
As of September 30, 2020, the most recent calendar quarter end, the fund’s year-to-date return was 2.71%.
Average Annual Total Returns For the calendar year ended December 31, 2019
Average Annual Total Returns
For the calendar year ended December 31, 2019
1 yearSince InceptionInception Date
American Century Diversified Municipal Bond ETF Shares
Return Before Taxes8.79%7.06%09/10/2018
Return After Taxes on Distributions7.60%5.93%09/10/2018
Return After Taxes on Distributions and Sale of Fund Shares5.18%4.90%09/10/2018
S&P National AMT-Free Municipal Bond Index
  (reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)
7.42%6.61%09/10/2018
American Century ETF Trust | American Century Low Volatility ETF
American Century® Low Volatility ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks capital appreciation.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.29%
Other Expenses1
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.29%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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 (unless otherwise indicated), that you earn 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:
1 year3 years
$30$93
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 rate 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. Because the fund is new, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate is not available.
Principal Investment Strategies
Portfolio managers utilize quantitative models to select securities with attractive fundamentals that they expect will provide returns that will reasonably track the market over the long term, while realizing less volatility.
The fund generally invests in common stocks of U.S. companies that have a market capitalization greater than $2 billion. To select securities for the fund, portfolio managers utilize proprietary models to screen and rank companies based on fundamental metrics. The information used to generate these measures is typically contained in financial statement data and market information, but may include other sources. The fund seeks to deliver a lower realized portfolio volatility than its benchmark, the S&P 500® Index, by utilizing a stock selection process that expands on traditional measures of price volatility by including measures of asymmetric (i.e. downside) volatility and seeking securities of businesses that demonstrate consistent cash-flows, stable operations, and strong balance sheets. Portfolio managers employ a multi-dimensional approach to stock selection and risk management—which includes evaluating empirical measures of stock price risks and fundamental measures of business safety and continuity—to construct a portfolio that balances the return and risk objectives of the fund. This approach seeks to identify risks of individual securities and across key dimensions such as economic segment. Finally, portfolio managers review the output of the quantitative model, considering factors such as risk management, transaction costs, and liquidity management.
The portfolio managers generally sell securities from the fund’s portfolio when they believe a security becomes less attractive relative to other opportunities, a security’s risk characteristics outweigh its return opportunity, or specific events alter a security’s prospects.
The fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) that does not seek to replicate the performance of a specified index. When buying or selling a security, the portfolio managers may consider the trade-off between expected returns of the security and implementation or tax costs of the trade in an attempt to gain trading efficiencies, avoid unnecessary risk, and enhance fund performance.
Principal Risks
Low Volatility Strategy Risk - There is no assurance that the fund will be less volatile than the market over the long term or for any specified period. The fund’s strategy of constructing a portfolio that realizes lower volatility than the market may not produce the intended result. A security’s volatility can change very quickly, and specific securities in the fund’s portfolio may become more
volatile than expected. Additionally, low volatility investments may underperform the equity markets during periods of strong, rising or speculative equity markets.
Equity Securities Risk - The value of equity securities, may fluctuate due to changes in investor perception of a specific issuer, changes in the general condition of the stock market, or occurrences of political or economic events that affect equity issuers and the market. Common stock prices may be particularly sensitive to rising interest rates, as the cost of capital rises and borrowing costs increase.
Investment Process Risk Securities selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently than expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments regarding the factors used, the weight placed on each factor, changes from the factors’ historical trends, and technical issues with the construction and implementation of the investment process (including, for example, data problems and/or software or other implementation issues). There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Cash Transactions Risk - The fund may effect its creations and redemptions for cash, rather than for in-kind securities. Therefore, it may be required to sell portfolio securities and subsequently recognize gains on such sales that the fund might not have recognized if it were to distribute portfolio securities in-kind. As such, investments in fund shares may be less tax-efficient than an investment in an ETF that distributes portfolio securities entirely in-kind. Cash transactions may have to be carried out over several days if the securities market is relatively illiquid and may involve considerable brokerage fees and taxes. Brokerage fees and taxes could be higher than if the fund sold and redeemed shares in-kind.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is leading to travel restrictions, disruption of healthcare systems, prolonged quarantines, cancellations, supply chain disruptions, lower consumer demand, layoffs, ratings downgrades, and defaults among other economic impacts. Certain markets have experienced temporary closures, extreme volatility, severe losses, reduced liquidity and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Authorized Participant Concentration Risk - Only an authorized participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the fund. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as authorized participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no other authorized participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to net asset value (NAV) and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.
Redemption Risk - The fund may need to sell securities at times it would not otherwise do so to meet shareholder redemption requests. Selling securities to meet such redemptions may cause the fund to experience a loss, increase the fund’s transaction costs or have tax consequences. To the extent that a large shareholder (including a fund of funds or 529 college savings plan) invests in the fund, the fund may experience relatively large redemptions as such shareholder reallocates its assets.
Principal Loss - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit americancenturyetfs.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | American Century Quality Convertible Securities ETF
American Century® Quality Convertible Securities ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks total return.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.32%
Other Expenses1
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.32%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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, that you earn 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:
1 year3 years
$33$103
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 rate 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. Because the fund is new, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate is not available.
Principal Investment Strategies
Under normal market conditions, the portfolio managers will invest at least 80% of the fund’s net assets, plus any borrowings for investment purposes, in convertible securities. Convertible securities have characteristics similar to both bonds and common stocks and typically consist of debt securities and preferred stocks that may be converted into or exchanged for a prescribed amount of common stock or other equity security, of the same or a different issuer, within a particular time period, at a specified price.
The portfolio managers select securities using a quantitative and fundamental investment process. They first screen the investment universe for liquidity and then select individual securities utilizing a quantitative and fundamental investment process informed by fundamental and technical measures such as sales or earnings growth, profitability, leverage, balance sheet strength, price momentum relative to peers, and valuation and yield relative to other convertible securities. Portfolio holdings are weighted to achieve the optimal balance between risk and return by considering each portfolio security’s fundamental scores, benchmark weight, and equity sensitivity.
The fund is nondiversified. The fund may invest in high-yield securities (also referred to as “junk bonds”). The fund may engage in active and frequent trading of portfolio securities to achieve its principal investment strategies. This may cause higher transaction costs and may affect performance. It may also result in the realization and distribution of capital gains.
The fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) that does not seek to replicate the performance of a specified index. To determine whether to buy or sell a security, the portfolio managers consider, among other things, various fund requirements and standards, along with economic conditions, alternative investments, interest rates and various credit metrics.
Principal Risks
Convertible Securities Risk - The value of convertible securities may rise and fall with the market value of the underlying stock or, like a debt security, vary with changes in interest rates and the credit quality of the issuer. A convertible security tends to perform more like a stock when the underlying stock price is high relative to the conversion price and more like a debt security when the underlying stock price is low relative to the conversion price.
Credit Risk - The inability or perceived inability of a security’s issuer to make interest and principal payments may cause the value of the security to decrease. As a result, the fund’s share price could also decrease. Changes in the credit rating of a debt security held by the fund could have a similar effect.
High-Yield Risk - Issuers of high-yield securities are more vulnerable to real or perceived economic changes (such as an economic down turn or a prolonged period of rising interest rates), political changes or adverse developments specific to an issuer. These factors may be more likely to cause an issuer of low quality bonds to default on its obligations. Investment in high-yield securities is inherently speculative.
Interest Rate Risk - Investments in debt securities are also sensitive to interest rate changes. Generally, the value of debt securities and the funds that hold them decline as interest rates rise. The fund is more susceptible to interest rate changes than funds that have shorter-weighted average maturities, such as money market and short-term bond funds. A period of rising interest rates may negatively affect the fund’s performance.
Investment Process Risk - Securities selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently than expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments regarding the factors used, the weight placed on each factor, changes from the factors’ historical trends, and technical issues with the construction and implementation of the investment process (including, for example, data problems and/or software or other implementation issues). There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Nondiversification Risk - The fund is classified as nondiversified. A nondiversified fund may invest a greater percentage of its assets in a smaller number of securities than a diversified fund. This gives the portfolio managers the flexibility to hold large positions in a smaller number of securities. If so, a price change in any one of those securities may have a greater impact on the fund’s share price than would be the case in a diversified fund and the fund may be more volatile than if it was diversified.
Sector Risk - The fund may invest a significant portion of its assets in the technology sector and, therefore, the performance of the fund could be negatively impacted by events affecting this sector. New market entrants, short product cycles, aggressive pricing, and problems with bringing products to market can affect security prices in the technology sector.
Cash Transactions Risk - The fund may effect its creations and redemptions for cash, rather than for in-kind securities. Therefore, it may be required to sell portfolio securities and subsequently recognize gains on such sales that the fund might not have recognized if it were to distribute portfolio securities in-kind. As such, investments in fund shares may be less tax-efficient than an investment in an ETF that distributes portfolio securities entirely in-kind. Cash transactions may have to be carried out over several days if the securities market is relatively illiquid and may involve considerable brokerage fees and taxes. Brokerage fees and taxes could be higher than if the fund sold and redeemed shares in-kind.
Liquidity Risk - During periods of market turbulence or unusually low trading activity, it may be necessary for the fund to sell securities at prices that could have an adverse effect on the fund. The market for lower-quality debt securities is generally less liquid than the market for higher-quality securities. Changing regulatory and market conditions, including increases in interest rates and credit spreads may adversely affect the liquidity of the fund’s investments.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is leading to travel restrictions, disruption of healthcare systems, prolonged quarantines, cancellations, supply chain disruptions, lower consumer demand, layoffs, ratings downgrades, and defaults among other economic impacts. Certain markets have experienced temporary closures, extreme volatility, severe losses, reduced liquidity and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Authorized Participant Concentration Risk - Only an authorized participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the fund. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as authorized participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no other authorized participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to net asset value (NAV) and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.
High Portfolio Turnover Risk - High portfolio turnover (higher than 100% annually), may result in increased transaction costs to the fund, including brokerage commissions, dealer mark-ups and other transaction costs on the sale of securities.
Large Shareholder Risk - Certain shareholders, including other funds advised by the advisor, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the shares of the fund. In addition, a third party investor, the advisor or an affiliate of the advisor, an authorized participant, a market maker, or another entity may invest in the fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the fund or to facilitate the fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment, that the size of the fund would be maintained at such levels or that the fund would continue to meet applicable listing requirements. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc. and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.
Principal Loss Risk - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit americancenturyetfs.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | American Century Quality Diversified International ETF
American Century® Quality Diversified International ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks to provide investment results that closely correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the Alpha Vee American Century Diversified International Equity Index (the “Index”).
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.39%
Other Expenses
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.39%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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 (unless otherwise indicated), that you earn 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:
1 year3 years5 years10 years
$40$126$219$493
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 rate 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 118% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
Under normal market conditions, the fund invests at least 80% of its assets, exclusive of collateral held from securities lending, in the component securities of the underlying index. The Index is a rules-based index maintained by Alpha Vee Solutions, Inc. (the index provider).
The Index is designed to select securities with attractive growth, valuation, and quality fundamentals. The universe of the Index is comprised of large- and mid-capitalization equity securities of global issuers in developed and emerging markets, excluding the United States. To construct the Index, the index provider first screens the underlying universe, selecting securities with higher profitability, return on assets, return on equity, and gross margins. The index provider next determines a growth score and a value score for each selected security. The growth scores are based on sales, earnings, operating income, profitability and cash flows. The value scores are based on value, earnings yield, dividend yield, and cash flow metrics. The index provider then weights each security based on a combined growth and value score. Though component securities of the Index may change from time to time, the index typically consists of 300–500 securities and, as of September 30, 2020, the market capitalization range of the Index was approximately $4.0 billion and larger.
For purposes of investing at least 80% of its assets in securities included in the Index, the fund may invest in depositary receipts representing securities included in the Index or securities representing depositary receipts included in the Index.
The Index and the fund are rebalanced monthly and reconstituted quarterly.
The fund may use a “representative sampling” strategy with respect to its Index instead of a replication strategy. For example, the fund may use such strategy when there are practical difficulties or substantial costs involved in compiling a portfolio of securities to follow the Index or, in certain instances, when a component security becomes temporarily illiquid, unavailable or less liquid. To the extent the fund uses representative sampling, the advisor invests in what it believes to be a representative sample of the component securities in the Index using quantitative analytical procedures to give the fund’s portfolio an investment profile similar to that of its Index. The fund also may realize savings in transaction costs or other efficiencies by investing up to 20% of its assets in securities or instruments not included in the Index but which the advisor believes will help the fund track the Index.
In addition, the fund may use futures contracts to invest cash balances, simulate investments in the underlying index, facilitate trading or minimize transaction costs. The portfolio managers may also use futures contracts to seek to reduce the fund’s tracking error relative to the Index.
The fund may concentrate its investments (i.e., hold 25% or more of its net assets) in a particular industry or group of industries to the extent that the Index is concentrated.
If the Index has high portfolio turnover, the fund may also have high portfolio turnover. This may cause higher transaction costs and may affect performance. It may also result in the realization and distribution of capital gains.
Principal Risks
Foreign Securities Risk - Foreign securities are generally riskier than U.S. securities. Political events (such as civil unrest, national elections and imposition of exchange controls), social and economic events (such as labor strikes and rising inflation), and natural disasters occurring in a country where the fund invests could cause the fund’s investments in that country to experience gains or losses. Securities of foreign issuers may be less liquid, more volatile and harder to value than U.S. securities.
Emerging Market Risk - Investing in emerging market countries generally is riskier than investing in foreign developed countries. Emerging market countries may have unstable governments, economies that are subject to sudden change, and significant volatility in their financial markets. These countries also may lack the legal, business and social framework to support securities markets.
Index-Related Risk - Unlike many investment companies, the fund is not actively managed, and the portfolio managers do not attempt to take defensive positions under any market conditions, including declining markets. Therefore, the portfolio managers generally will not buy or sell securities unless they are added or removed from the Index, even if a security is underperforming. There is no assurance that the Index will be determined, composed or calculated accurately. While the index provider provides descriptions of what the Index is designed to achieve, the index provider does not guarantee the quality, accuracy or completeness of data in respect of its indices and does not guarantee that the Index will be in line with the described index methodology. Gains, losses or costs to the fund caused by errors in the Index may therefore be borne by the fund and its shareholders.
Geographic Risk - The fund will be subject to the risks of volatile economic cycles and/or conditions and developments that may be particular to a country or region in which it invests, such as: adverse securities markets; adverse exchange rates; adverse social, political, regulatory, economic, business, environmental or other developments; or natural disasters.
Single Country Risk - If a particular country or region comprises a large percentage of the fund’s Index, the fund will likely invest a significant portion of assets in that country or region. Investing a significant portion of assets in one country or region makes the fund more dependent upon the political and economic circumstances of that particular country or region than a fund that is more widely diversified.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably, based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Equity Securities Risk - The value of equity securities, may fluctuate due to changes in investor perception of a specific issuer, changes in the general condition of the stock market, or occurrences of political or economic events that affect equity issuers and the market. Common stock prices may be particularly sensitive to rising interest rates, as the cost of capital rises and borrowing costs increase.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
Rebalance Risk - The fund rebalances its portfolio in accordance with the Index’s rebalance schedule. Accordingly, any change to this schedule will result in corresponding changes to the fund’s rebalance schedule.
Calculation Methodology Risk - The Index relies on various sources of information to assess the criteria of issuers included in the Index, including information that may be based on assumptions and estimates. Neither the fund nor American Century Investment Management, Inc. (the advisor) can offer assurances that the Index’s calculation methodology or sources of information will provide an accurate assessment of included issuers.
Style Risk - There can be no assurance that the investment factor stock selection process and screens of the Index will enhance performance. Exposure to certain investment factors and use of screens may detract from performance in some market environments, perhaps for extended periods.
Currency Risk - The fund could experience gains or losses based solely on changes in the exchange rate between foreign currencies and the U.S. dollar.
Valuation Risk - The sale price the fund receives for a security may differ from the fund’s valuation of the security and may differ from the value used by the Index, particularly for securities that trade in low volume or volatile markets or that are valued using a fair value methodology. Non-U.S. exchanges may be open on days when the fund does not price its shares, thus the value of securities in the fund’s portfolio may change on days when investors are unable to purchase or sell the fund.
Depositary Receipts Risk - Investment in depositary receipts does not eliminate all the risks inherent in investing in securities of non-U.S. issuers. The market value of depositary receipts is dependent upon the market value of the underlying securities and fluctuations in the relative value of the currencies in which the depositary receipts and the underlying securities are quoted.
Mid-Capitalization Company Risk - Investments in medium-size companies may involve greater risk and price volatility than investments in larger, more mature companies.
Tracking Error Risk - Tracking error is the divergence of the fund’s performance from that of the Index. Tracking error may occur because of differences between the securities held in the fund’s portfolio and those included in the Index, pricing differences, transaction costs, the fund’s holding of cash, differences in timing of the accrual of dividends or interest, changes to the Index or the need to meet various new or existing regulatory requirements. This risk may be heightened during times of increased market volatility or other unusual market conditions. Tracking error also may result because the fund incurs fees and expenses, while the Index does not. In addition, any issues the fund encounters with regard to currency convertibility and repatriation may also increase Index tracking risk.
High Portfolio Turnover Risk - High portfolio turnover (higher than 100% annually), may result in increased transaction costs to the fund, including brokerage commissions, dealer mark-ups and other transaction costs on the sale of securities.
Sampling Risk - To the extent the fund uses a representative sampling strategy, it may hold a smaller number of securities than are in the Index or it may hold securities that are not included in the Index. As a result, an adverse development respecting an issuer of securities held by the fund could result in a greater decline in the fund’s NAV than would be the case if all of the securities in the Index were held. The fund’s use of a representative sampling strategy may also include the risk that it may not track the return of the Index with the same degree of accuracy as would an investment vehicle that invested in every component security of the Index with the same weightings as the Index.
Management Risk - To the extent the fund uses representative sampling, the strategy may fail to produce the intended results.
Cash Transactions Risk - The fund may effect its creations and redemptions for cash, rather than for in-kind securities. Therefore, it may be required to sell portfolio securities and subsequently recognize gains on such sales that the fund might not have recognized if it were to distribute portfolio securities in-kind. As such, investments in fund shares may be less tax-efficient than an investment in an ETF that distributes portfolio securities entirely in-kind. Cash transactions may have to be carried out over several days if the securities market is relatively illiquid and may involve considerable brokerage fees and taxes. Brokerage fees and taxes will be higher than if the fund sold and redeemed shares in-kind.
Non-Correlation Risk - There is no guarantee that the fund will achieve a high degree of correlation to the Index and therefore achieve its investment objective. Market disruptions and regulatory restrictions could have an adverse effect on the fund’s ability to adjust its exposure to the required levels in order to track the Index. In addition, the fund’s NAV may deviate from the Index if the fund fair values a portfolio security at a price other than the price used by the Index for that security.
Authorized Participant Concentration Risk - Only an authorized participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the fund. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as authorized participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no other authorized participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to net asset value (NAV) and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) generally.
Concentration Risk - To the extent the fund concentrates in a specific industry or a group of industries, it may be subject to greater risks and market fluctuations than a portfolio investing in a broader range of industries.
New Fund Risk - As a new fund, there can be no assurance that it will grow to or maintain an economically viable size. The fund may experience greater tracking error than it otherwise would at higher asset levels.
Large Shareholder Risk - Certain shareholders, including other funds advised by the advisor, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the shares of the fund. In addition, a third party investor, the advisor or an affiliate of the advisor, an authorized participant, a market maker, or another entity may invest in the fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the fund or to facilitate the fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment, that the size of the fund would be maintained at such levels or that the fund would continue to meet applicable listing requirements. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the NYSE Arca, Inc. and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.
Derivatives Risk - The use of derivative instruments such as futures contracts involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit and correlation risk. In addition, derivatives can create economic leverage in the fund’s portfolio, which may result in significant volatility and cause the fund to participate in losses (as well as gains) in an amount that exceeds the fund’s initial investment. Certain derivatives have the potential for unlimited loss, regardless of the size of the initial investment.
Principal Loss Risk - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
Calendar Year Total Returns
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Highest Performance Quarter (1Q 2019): 11.50% Lowest Performance Quarter (3Q 2019): -1.60%
As of September 30, 2020, the most recent calendar quarter end, the fund’s year-to-date return was 3.07%.
Average Annual Total Returns For the calendar year ended December 31, 2019
Average Annual Total Returns
For the calendar year ended December 31, 2019
1 yearSince InceptionInception Date
American Century Quality Diversified International ETF Shares
Return Before Taxes24.15%5.68%09/10/2018
Return After Taxes on Distributions23.61%5.24%09/10/2018
Return After Taxes on Distributions and Sale of Fund Shares14.68%4.31%09/10/2018
Alpha Vee American Century Diversified International Equity Index
  (reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)
24.89%6.31%09/10/2018
American Century ETF Trust | American Century Quality Preferred ETF
American Century® Quality Preferred ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks current income and capital appreciation.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.32%
Other Expenses1
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.32%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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 (unless otherwise indicated), that you earn 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:
1 year3 years
$33$103
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 rate 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. Because the fund is new, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate is not available.
Principal Investment Strategies
Under normal market conditions, the portfolio managers will invest at least 80% of the fund’s net assets, plus any borrowings for investment purposes, in preferred securities issued by U.S. and non-U.S. companies. Preferred securities in which the fund may invest include preferred stock, hybrid preferred securities that have characteristics similar to both preferred stock and debt securities, floating rate preferred securities, junior subordinated debt, senior unsecured debt obligations denominated in $25 par amounts (senior notes or baby bonds), re-packaged preferreds, and convertible securities.
The portfolio managers screen securities utilizing a quantitative and fundamental investment process informed by fundamental and technical measures such as liquidity, credit risk, size, quality, and momentum. The strategy screens for profitability and leverage and selects issuers and issues based on favorable quality, yield and valuation metrics.
The fund is nondiversified. The fund concentrates its investments in the group of industries that comprise the financials sector. The fund may engage in active and frequent trading of portfolio securities to achieve its principal investment strategies. This may cause higher transaction costs and may affect performance. It may also result in the realization and distribution of capital gains. The fund may invest in securities of any duration or maturity.
The fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) that does not seek to replicate the performance of a specified index. To determine whether to buy or sell a security, the portfolio managers consider, among other things, various fund requirements and standards, along with economic conditions, alternative investments, interest rates and various credit metrics.
Principal Risks
Preferred Securities Risk -Preferred securities combine some of the characteristics of both common stocks and bonds. Preferred securities are typically subordinated to a company’s other debt which subjects them to greater credit risk . Generally, holders of preferred securities have no voting rights. In certain circumstances, an issuer of preferred securities may defer payment on the securities and, in some cases, redeem the securities prior to a specified date. Preferred securities may also be substantially less liquid than other securities and may have less upside potential than common stock.
Floating Rate Securities Risk - Floating rate securities are structured so that the security’s coupon rate fluctuates based upon the level of a reference rate. In a falling interest rate environment, the coupon on floating rate securities will generally decline, causing a reduction in the fund’s income. A floating rate security’s coupon rate resets periodically according to the terms of the security. In a
rising interest rate environment, floating rate securities with coupon rates that reset infrequently may lag behind the changes in market interest rates. Floating rate securities may also contain terms that impose a maximum coupon rate the issuer will pay decreasing the value of the security.
Fixed-To-Floating Rate Securities Risk - Securities with a floating or variable interest rate component can be less sensitive to interest rate changes than securities with fixed interest rates but may decline in value if their interest rates do not rise as much, or as quickly, as interest rates in general. They generally carry lower yields than similar fixed-rate securities.
Call Risk - Some debt securities may be redeemed, or “called,” at the option of the issuer before their stated maturity date. In general, an issuer will call its debt securities if they can be refinanced by issuing new debt securities which bear a lower interest rate. During periods of falling interest rates an issuer may call its high yielding debt securities, the fund would then have to invest the proceeds at lower interest rates, likely resulting in an income decline.
Credit Risk - The inability or perceived inability of a security’s issuer to make interest and principal payments may cause the value of the security to decrease. As a result, the fund’s share price could also decrease. Changes in the credit rating of a debt security held by the fund could have a similar effect.
Extension Risk - When interest rates rise certain obligations the issuer (or other obligated party) may pay off obligations more slowly than anticipated, causing the value of these debt securities to fall. Rising interest rates tend to extend the duration of debt securities, making their market value more sensitive to changes in interest rates.
Interest Rate Risk - Investments in debt securities are also sensitive to interest rate changes. Generally, the value of debt securities and the funds that hold them decline as interest rates rise. The fund is more susceptible to interest rate changes than funds that have shorter-weighted average maturities, such as money market and short-term bond funds. A period of rising interest rates may negatively affect the fund’s performance.
Investment Process Risk - Securities selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently than expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments regarding the factors used, the weight placed on each factor, changes from the factors’ historical trends, and technical issues with the construction and implementation of the investment process (including, for example, data problems and/or software or other implementation issues). There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Nondiversification Risk - The fund is classified as nondiversified. A nondiversified fund may invest a greater percentage of its assets in a smaller number of securities than a diversified fund. This gives the portfolio managers the flexibility to hold large positions in a smaller number of securities. If so, a price change in any one of those securities may have a greater impact on the fund’s share price than would be the case in a diversified fund and the fund may be more volatile than if it was diversified.
Foreign Risk - Foreign securities are generally riskier than U.S. securities. Political events (such as civil unrest, national elections and imposition of exchange controls), social and economic events (such as labor strikes and rising inflation), natural disasters and public health emergencies occurring in a country where the fund invests could cause the fund’s investments in that country to experience gains or losses. Securities of foreign issuers may be less liquid, more volatile and harder to value than U.S. securities.
Concentration Risk - Concentrating investments in a particular industry or group of industries gives the fund greater exposure than other funds to market, economic and other factors affecting that industry or group of industries. The financials sector can be significantly affected by changes in interest rates, government regulation, the rate of defaults on corporate, consumer and government debt, and the availability and cost of capital.
LIBOR Transition Risk – The fund may invest in instruments that have variable or floating coupon rates based on the London Interbank Offered Rate (“LIBOR”). LIBOR is a benchmark interest rate intended to be representative of the rate at which certain major international banks lend to one another over short-terms. Due to allegations of manipulation, LIBOR will be phased out by the end of 2021. Uncertainty remains regarding a replacement rate or rates for LIBOR. The transition process may lead to increased volatility or illiquidity in markets for instruments that rely on LIBOR. This could result in a change to the value of such instruments or a change in the cost of temporary borrowing for the fund.
Cash Transactions Risk - The fund may effect its creations and redemptions for cash, rather than for in-kind securities. Therefore, it may be required to sell portfolio securities and subsequently recognize gains on such sales that the fund might not have recognized if it were to distribute portfolio securities in-kind. As such, investments in fund shares may be less tax-efficient than an investment in an ETF that distributes portfolio securities entirely in-kind. Cash transactions may have to be carried out over several days if the securities market is relatively illiquid and may involve considerable brokerage fees and taxes. Brokerage fees and taxes could be higher than if the fund sold and redeemed shares in-kind.
Liquidity Risk - During periods of market turbulence or unusually low trading activity, it may be necessary for the fund to sell securities at prices that could have an adverse effect on the fund. The market for lower-quality debt securities is generally less liquid than the market for higher-quality securities. Changing regulatory and market conditions, including increases in interest rates and credit spreads may adversely affect the liquidity of the fund’s investments.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is leading to travel restrictions, disruption of healthcare systems, prolonged quarantines, cancellations, supply chain disruptions, lower consumer demand, layoffs, ratings downgrades, and defaults among other economic impacts. Certain markets have experienced temporary closures, extreme volatility, severe losses, reduced liquidity and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Authorized Participant Concentration Risk - Only an authorized participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the fund. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as authorized participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no other authorized participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to net asset value (NAV) and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) generally.
High Portfolio Turnover Risk - High portfolio turnover (higher than 100% annually), may result in increased transaction costs to the fund, including brokerage commissions, dealer mark-ups and other transaction costs on the sale of securities.
Large Shareholder Risk - Certain shareholders, including other funds advised by the advisor, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the shares of the fund. In addition, a third party investor, the advisor or an affiliate of the advisor, an authorized participant, a market maker, or another entity may invest in the fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the fund or to facilitate the fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment, that the size of the fund would be maintained at such levels or that the fund would continue to meet applicable listing requirements. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the CBOE BZX Exchange, Inc. and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.
Principal Loss Risk - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit americancenturyetfs.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | American Century STOXX U.S. Quality Growth ETF
American Century® STOXX® U.S. Quality Growth ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks to provide investment results that closely correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the iSTOXX American Century USA Quality Growth Index (the “Index”).
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.29%
Other Expenses
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.29%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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 (unless otherwise indicated), that you earn 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:
1 year3 years5 years10 years
$30$93$163$369
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 rate 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 180% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
Under normal market conditions, the fund invests at least 80% of its assets, exclusive of collateral held from securities lending, in the component securities of the underlying index. The Index is a rules-based index maintained and calculated by STOXX® Ltd. (the index provider). The Index is designed to select securities of large- and mid-capitalization U.S. companies with attractive growth and quality fundamentals.
The Index universe is defined by the STOXX USA 900 Index, which consists of the 900 largest publicly traded U.S. equity securities. The Index is designed to measure the performance of securities in the universe and identify those that exhibit higher growth and quality characteristics relative to their peers. To construct the Index, the index provider first screens the underlying universe and selects securities with higher profitability, return on assets, return on equity, and gross margins. The index provider next calculates a growth score for each security, which is based on sales, earnings, operating income, profitability and cash flows. The index provider then weights securities based on the calculated growth score. Though component securities of the Index may change from time to time, the index typically consists of 150–250 securities and, as of September 30, 2020, the market capitalization of the Index was approximately $3.3 billion and larger.
The Index and fund are rebalanced monthly and reconstituted quarterly.
The fund may use a “representative sampling” strategy with respect to its Index instead of a replication strategy. For example, the fund may use such strategy when there are practical difficulties or substantial costs involved in compiling a portfolio of securities to follow the Index or, in certain instances, when a component security becomes temporarily illiquid, unavailable or less liquid. To the extent the fund uses representative sampling, the advisor invests in what it believes to be a representative sample of the component securities in the Index using quantitative analytical procedures to give the fund’s portfolio an investment profile similar to that of its Index. The fund also may realize savings in transaction costs or other efficiencies by investing up to 20% of its assets in securities or instruments not included in the Index but which the advisor believes will help the fund track the Index.
In addition, the fund may use futures contracts to invest cash balances, simulate investments in the Index, facilitate trading or minimize transaction costs. The portfolio managers may also use futures contracts to seek to reduce the fund’s tracking error relative to the Index.
The fund may concentrate its investments (i.e., hold 25% or more of its net assets) in a particular industry or group of industries to the extent that the Index is concentrated.
If the Index has high portfolio turnover, the fund may also have high portfolio turnover. This may cause higher transaction costs and may affect performance. It may also result in the realization and distribution of capital gains.
Principal Risks
Equity Securities Risk - The value of equity securities, may fluctuate due to changes in investor perception of a specific issuer, changes in the general condition of the stock market, or occurrences of political or economic events that affect equity issuers and the market. Common stock prices may be particularly sensitive to rising interest rates, as the cost of capital rises and borrowing costs increase.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
Index-Related Risk - Unlike many investment companies, the fund is not actively managed, and the portfolio managers do not attempt to take defensive positions under any market conditions, including declining markets. Therefore, the portfolio managers generally will not buy or sell securities unless they are added or removed from the Index, even if a security is underperforming. There is no assurance that the Index will be determined, composed or calculated accurately. While the index provider provides descriptions of what the Index is designed to achieve, the index provider does not guarantee the quality, accuracy or completeness of data in respect of its indices and does not guarantee that the Index will be in line with the described index methodology. Gains, losses or costs to the fund caused by errors in the Index may therefore be borne by the fund and its shareholders.
Calculation Methodology Risk - The Index relies on various sources of information to assess the criteria of issuers included in the Index, including information that may be based on assumptions and estimates. Neither the fund nor American Century Investment Management, Inc. (the advisor) can offer assurances that the Index’s calculation methodology or sources of information will provide an accurate assessment of included issuers.
Growth Stocks Risk - Investments in growth stocks may be more volatile than other stocks and the overall stock market. These stocks are typically priced higher than other stocks because of their growth potential, which may or may not be realized.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably, based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Rebalance Risk - The fund rebalances its portfolio in accordance with the underlying index’s rebalance schedule. Accordingly, any change to this schedule will result in corresponding changes to the fund’s rebalance schedule.
Style Risk - There can be no assurance that the investment factor stock selection process and screens of the Index will enhance performance. Exposure to certain investment factors and use of screens may detract from performance in some market environments, perhaps for extended periods.
Mid-Capitalization Company Risk - Investments in medium-size companies may involve greater risk and price volatility than investments in larger, more mature companies.
Tracking Error Risk - Tracking error is the divergence of the fund’s performance from that of the Index. Tracking error may occur because of differences between the securities held in the fund’s portfolio and those included in the Index, pricing differences, transaction costs, the fund’s holding of cash, differences in timing of the accrual of dividends or interest, changes to the Index or the need to meet various new or existing regulatory requirements. This risk may be heightened during times of increased market volatility or other unusual market conditions. Tracking error also may result because the fund incurs fees and expenses, while the Index does not.
High Portfolio Turnover Risk - High portfolio turnover (higher than 100% annually), may result in increased transaction costs to the fund, including brokerage commissions, dealer mark-ups and other transaction costs on the sale of securities.
Sampling Risk - To the extent the fund uses a representative sampling strategy, it may hold a smaller number of securities than are in the Index or it may hold securities that are not included in the Index. As a result, an adverse development respecting an issuer of securities held by the fund could result in a greater decline in the fund’s NAV than would be the case if all of the securities in the Index were held. The fund’s use of a representative sampling strategy may also include the risk that it may not track the return of the
Index with the same degree of accuracy as would an investment vehicle that invested in every component security of the Index with the same weightings as the Index.
Management Risk - To the extent the fund uses representative sampling, the strategy may fail to produce the intended results.
Non-Correlation Risk - There is no guarantee that the fund will achieve a high degree of correlation to the Index and therefore achieve its investment objective. Market disruptions and regulatory restrictions could have an adverse effect on the fund’s ability to adjust its exposure to the required levels in order to track the Index. In addition, the fund’s NAV may deviate from the Index if the fund fair values a portfolio security at a price other than the price used by the Index for that security.
Authorized Participant Concentration Risk - Only an authorized participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the fund. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as authorized participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no other authorized participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to net asset value (NAV) and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) generally.
Concentration Risk - To the extent the fund concentrates in a specific industry or a group of industries, it may be subject to greater risks and market fluctuations than a portfolio investing in a broader range of industries.
New Fund Risk - As a new fund, there can be no assurance that it will grow to or maintain an economically viable size. The fund may experience greater tracking error than it otherwise would at higher asset levels.
Large Shareholder Risk - Certain shareholders, including other funds advised by the advisor, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the shares of the fund. In addition, a third party investor, the advisor or an affiliate of the advisor, an authorized participant, a market maker, or another entity may invest in the fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the fund or to facilitate the fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment, that the size of the fund would be maintained at such levels or that the fund would continue to meet applicable listing requirements. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the NYSE Arca, Inc. and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.
Derivatives Risk - The use of derivative instruments such as futures contracts involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit and correlation risk. In addition, derivatives can create economic leverage in the fund’s portfolio, which may result in significant volatility and cause the fund to participate in losses (as well as gains) in an amount that exceeds the fund’s initial investment. Certain derivatives have the potential for unlimited loss, regardless of the size of the initial investment.
Principal Loss Risk - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund 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 fund’s performance from year to year. The table shows how the fund’s average annual returns for the periods shown compared with 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. For current performance information, please visit americancenturyetfs.com.
Sales charges and account fees, if applicable, are not reflected in the bar chart. If those charges were included, returns would be less than those shown.
Calendar Year Total Returns
ck0001710607-20200831_g5.jpg
Highest Performance Quarter (1Q 2019): 19.12% Lowest Performance Quarter (3Q 2019): -0.94%
As of September 30, 2020, the most recent calendar quarter end, the fund’s year-to-date return was 21.29%.
Average Annual Total Returns For the calendar year ended December 31, 2019
Average Annual Total Returns
For the calendar year ended December 31, 2019
1 yearSince InceptionInception Date
American Century STOXX® U.S. Quality Growth ETF Shares
Return Before Taxes34.54%9.55%09/10/2018
Return After Taxes on Distributions34.41%9.44%09/10/2018
Return After Taxes on Distributions and Sale of Fund Shares20.53%7.29%09/10/2018
iSTOXX® American Century USA Quality Growth Index
  (reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)
35.05%9.90%09/10/2018
American Century ETF Trust | American Century STOXX U.S. Quality Value ETF
American Century® STOXX® U.S. Quality Value ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks to provide investment results that closely correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the iSTOXX® American Century USA Quality Value Index (the underlying index).
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.29%
Other Expenses
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.29%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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 (unless otherwise indicated), that you earn 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:
1 year3 years5 years10 years
$30$93$163$369
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 rate 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 178% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
Under normal market conditions, the fund invests at least 80% of its assets in the component securities of the underlying index. The underlying index is a rules-based index maintained and calculated by STOXX® Ltd. (the index provider). The underlying index is designed to select securities of large- and mid-capitalization companies that are undervalued or have sustainable income.
The underlying index universe is defined by the STOXX® USA 900 Index, which consists of the 900 largest publicly traded U.S. equity securities. The underlying index is constructed using a rules-based methodology that screens and weights stocks based on fundamental measures of quality, value and income. A quality screen seeks to eliminate the bottom of the universe of stocks based on measures of profitability, earnings quality, management quality and earnings estimate revisions. A valuation score is computed for the remaining stocks, determined by the attractiveness of each stock relative to its peers in the same industry group based on value, earnings yield and cash flow yield metrics. An income sustainability screen based on dividend growth and dividend coverage metrics is applied to eliminate the bottom of the universe of dividend-paying stocks, and an income score based on dividend-yield is computed for the remaining stocks. The underlying index is constructed by combining the value stocks and income stocks using the valuation and income scores and portfolio optimization. Portfolio optimization uses quantitative models to build a portfolio of stocks from the scores described above that are expected to provide the optimal balance between risk and expected return. Though component securities of the underlying index may change from time to time, the index typically consists of 200-300 securities and, as of September 30, 2020 the market capitalization range was approximately $2.6 billion to $2.0 trillion.
The fund may use a “representative sampling” strategy with respect to its underlying index when a replication strategy might be detrimental to shareholders. For example, the fund may use such strategy when there are practical difficulties or substantial costs involved in compiling a portfolio of securities to follow the underlying index or, in certain instances, when a component security becomes temporarily illiquid, unavailable or less liquid. To the extent the fund uses representative sampling, the advisor invests in what it believes to be a representative sample of the component securities in the underlying index using quantitative analytical procedures to give the fund’s portfolio an investment profile similar to that of its underlying index. The fund also may realize savings in transaction costs or other efficiencies by investing up to 20% of its assets in securities or instruments not included in the underlying index but which the advisor believes will help the fund track the underlying index.
In addition, the fund may use futures contracts to invest cash balances, simulate investments in the underlying index, facilitate trading or minimize transaction costs. The portfolio managers may also use futures contracts to seek to reduce the fund’s tracking error relative to the underlying index.
The underlying index and fund are rebalanced monthly and reconstituted quarterly.
The fund will concentrate its investments (i.e., hold 25% or more of its net assets) in a particular industry or group of industries to approximately the same extent that the underlying index is concentrated.
Principal Risks
Equity Securities Risk - The value of equity securities, may fluctuate due to changes in investor perception of a specific issuer, changes in the general condition of the stock market, or occurrences of political or economic events that affect equity issuers and the market. Common stock prices may be particularly sensitive to rising interest rates, as the cost of capital rises and borrowing costs increase.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
Index-Related Risk - Unlike many investment companies, the fund is not actively managed and the portfolio managers do not attempt to take defensive positions under any market conditions, including declining markets. Therefore, the portfolio managers generally will not buy or sell a security unless that security is added or removed, respectively, from the underlying index, even if that security generally is underperforming. There is no assurance that the underlying index will be determined, composed or calculated accurately. While the index provider provides descriptions of what the underlying index is designed to achieve, the index provider does not guarantee the quality, accuracy or completeness of data in respect of its indices, and does not guarantee that the underlying index will be in line with the described index methodology. Gains, losses or costs to the fund caused by errors in the underlying index may therefore be borne by the fund and its shareholders.
Rebalance Risk - The fund rebalances its portfolio in accordance with the underlying index’s rebalance schedule. Accordingly, any change to this schedule will result in corresponding changes to the fund’s rebalance schedule.
Calculation Methodology Risk - The underlying index relies on various sources of information to assess the criteria of issuers included in the underlying index, including information that may be based on assumptions and estimates. Neither the fund nor American Century Investment Management, Inc. (the advisor) can offer assurances that the underlying index’s calculation methodology or sources of information will provide an accurate assessment of included issuers.
Style Risk - There can be no assurance that the investment factor stock selection process and screens of the underlying index will enhance performance. Exposure to certain investment factors and use of screens may detract from performance in some market environments, perhaps for extended periods.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably, based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Mid-Capitalization Company Risk - Investments in medium-size companies may involve greater risk and price volatility than investments in larger, more mature companies.
Tracking Error Risk - Tracking error is the divergence of the fund’s performance from that of the underlying index. Tracking error may occur because of differences between the securities held in the fund’s portfolio and those included in the underlying index, pricing differences, transaction costs, the fund’s holding of cash, differences in timing of the accrual of dividends or interest, changes to the underlying index or the need to meet various new or existing regulatory requirements. This risk may be heightened during times of increased market volatility or other unusual market conditions. Tracking error also may result because the fund incurs fees and expenses, while the underlying index does not.
Sampling Risk - To the extent the fund uses a representative sampling strategy, it may hold a smaller number of securities than are in the underlying index or it may hold securities that are not included in the underlying index. As a result, an adverse development respecting an issuer of securities held by the fund could result in a greater decline in the fund’s NAV than would be the case if all of the securities in the underlying index were held. The fund’s use of a representative sampling strategy may also include the risk that
it may not track the return of the underlying index with the same degree of accuracy as would an investment vehicle that invested in every component security of the underlying index with the same weightings as the underlying index.
Management Risk - To the extent the fund uses representative sampling, the strategy may fail to produce the intended results.
Non-Correlation Risk - There is no guarantee that the fund will achieve a high degree of correlation to the underlying index and therefore achieve its investment objective. Market disruptions and regulatory restrictions could have an adverse effect on the fund’s ability to adjust its exposure to the required levels in order to track the underlying index. In addition, the fund’s NAV may deviate from the underlying index if the fund fair values a portfolio security at a price other than the price used by the underlying index for that security.
Authorized Participant Concentration Risk - Only an authorized participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the fund. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as authorized participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no other authorized participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to net asset value (NAV) and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) generally.
Concentration Risk - To the extent the fund concentrates in a specific industry or a group of industries, it may be subject to greater risks and market fluctuations than a portfolio investing in a broader range of industries.
New Fund Risk - As a new fund, there can be no assurance that it will grow to or maintain an economically viable size. The fund may experience greater tracking error than it otherwise would at higher asset levels.
Large Shareholder Risk - Certain shareholders, including other funds advised by the advisor, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the shares of the fund. In addition, a third party investor, the advisor or an affiliate of the advisor, an authorized participant, a market maker, or another entity may invest in the fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the fund or to facilitate the fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment, that the size of the fund would be maintained at such levels or that the fund would continue to meet applicable listing requirements. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the NYSE Arca, Inc. and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.
Derivatives Risk - The use of derivative instruments such as futures contracts involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit and correlation risk. In addition, derivatives can create economic leverage in the fund’s portfolio, which may result in significant volatility and cause the fund to participate in losses (as well as gains) in an amount that exceeds the fund’s initial investment. Certain derivatives have the potential for unlimited loss, regardless of the size of the initial investment.
Principal Loss Risk - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund 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 fund’s performance from year to year. The table shows how the fund’s average annual returns for the periods shown compared with 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. For current performance information, please visit americancenturyetfs.com.
Sales charges and account fees, if applicable, are not reflected in the bar chart. If those charges were included, returns would be less than those shown.
Calendar Year Total Returns
ck0001710607-20200831_g6.jpg
Highest Performance Quarter (1Q 2019): 12.09% Lowest Performance Quarter (2Q 2019): 0.76%
As of September 30, 2020, the most recent calendar quarter end, the fund’s year-to-date return was -11.10%.
Average Annual Total Returns For the calendar year ended December 31, 2019
Average Annual Total Returns
For the calendar year ended December 31, 2019
1 yearSince InceptionInception Date
American Century STOXX® U.S. Quality Value ETF Shares
Return Before Taxes24.03%5.91%01/11/2018
Return After Taxes on Distributions23.21%5.26%01/11/2018
Return After Taxes on Distributions and Sale of Fund Shares14.58%4.42%01/11/2018
iSTOXX® American Century USA Quality Value Index
  (reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes)
24.58%6.21%01/11/2018
American Century ETF Trust | Avantis Core Fixed Income ETF
Avantis® Core Fixed Income ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks to maximize total return.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.15%
Other Expenses1
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.15%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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, that you earn 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:
1 year3 years
$15$48
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 rate 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. Because the fund is new, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate is not available.
Principal Investment Strategies
The fund invests primarily in investment grade quality debt obligations from a diverse group of U.S. and non-U.S. issuers.
The fund’s investment process uses an analytical framework, which includes an assessment of securities’ expected income and capital appreciation, to seek securities with high expected returns. The portfolio managers categorize securities within the fund’s investment universe into component groups based on factors such as industry sector, credit rating, duration, country, and currency. The portfolio managers then calculate the expected return implied by the yield curve of each component group, while considering valuation metrics such as yield, duration, and option adjusted spreads. Finally, the portfolio managers adjust the portfolio to arrive at position weightings for each component group with the goal of building a portfolio with enhanced expected return.
Under normal market conditions, the fund will invest at least 80% of its net assets, plus any borrowings for investment purposes, in fixed income securities. Fixed income securities in which the fund may invest include corporate bonds and notes issued by U.S. and foreign corporations, securities issued by governments and their agencies, instrumentalities, or sponsored corporations—including supranational organizations. The fund may also invest in derivative instruments such as futures contracts or swap agreements, including credit default swaps, credit default swap indexes, and total return swaps.
The fund will invest primarily in investment grade securities as rated by an independent rating agency or determined by the advisor to be of comparable credit quality if a rating is unavailable. The fund expects to maintain a weighted average duration within 2 years of the weighted average duration of its benchmark, the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond index, as calculated by the manager. Duration is used to assess the sensitivity of a security’s price to changes in interest rates.
The fund may engage in foreign currency transactions on a spot basis and may also use currency forward contracts to hedge exposure to foreign currencies. The fund may purchase or sell when-issued, forward-settling, delayed delivery or forward commitment obligations. The fund may invest more than 25% of its total assets in U.S. Treasury, federal agencies and instrumentalities obligations.
The fund may also engage in securities lending. Collateral received by the fund in connection with loaning its securities may consist of cash and U.S. government securities. Cash collateral may be invested in eligible securities, such as a government money market fund.
The fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) that does not seek to replicate the performance of a specified index. The portfolio managers continually analyze market and financial data to make buy, sell, and hold decisions. When buying or selling a security, the portfolio managers may consider the trade-off between expected returns of the security and implementation or tax costs of the trade in an attempt to gain trading efficiencies, avoid unnecessary risk, and enhance fund performance.
Principal Risks
Interest Rate Risk - Investments in debt securities are also sensitive to interest rate changes. Generally, the value of debt securities and the funds that hold them decline as interest rates rise. The fund is more susceptible to interest rate changes than funds that have shorter-weighted average maturities, such as money market and short-term bond funds. A period of rising interest rates may negatively affect the fund’s performance.
Credit Risk - The inability or perceived inability of a security’s issuer to make interest and principal payments may cause the value of the security to decrease. As a result, the fund’s share price could also decrease. Changes in the credit rating of a debt security held by the fund could have a similar effect.
Liquidity Risk - During periods of market turbulence or unusually low trading activity, it may be necessary for the fund to sell securities at prices that could have an adverse effect on the fund. The market for lower-quality debt securities is generally less liquid than the market for higher-quality securities. Changing regulatory and market conditions, including increases in interest rates and credit spreads may adversely affect the liquidity of the fund’s investments.
Prepayment Risk - The fund may invest in debt securities backed by mortgages or assets such as auto loan, home equity loan or student loan receivables. These underlying obligations may be prepaid, as when a homeowner refinances a mortgage to take advantage of declining interest rates. If so, the fund must reinvest prepayments at current rates, which may be less than the rate of the prepaid mortgage. Because of this prepayment risk, the fund may benefit less from declining interest rates than funds of similar duration that invest less heavily in mortgage- and asset-backed securities.
Foreign Risk - Foreign securities are generally riskier than U.S. securities. Political events (such as civil unrest, national elections and imposition of exchange controls), social and economic events (such as labor strikes and rising inflation), natural disasters and public health emergencies occurring in a country where the fund invests could cause the fund’s investments in that country to experience gains or losses. Securities of foreign issuers may be less liquid, more volatile and harder to value than U.S. securities.
Derivatives Risk - The use of derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit and correlation risk. In addition, derivatives can create economic leverage in the fund’s portfolio, which may result in significant volatility and cause the fund to participate in losses (as well as gains) in an amount that exceeds the fund’s initial investment. Certain derivatives have the potential for unlimited loss, regardless of the size of the initial investment. Futures contracts may experience potentially dramatic price changes (losses) and imperfect correlations between the price of the contract and the underlying security, index or currency. Swap agreements subject a fund to counterparty risk. Interest rate swaps could result in losses if the fund does not correctly anticipate interest rate changes. Credit default swaps could result in losses if the fund does not correctly evaluate the creditworthiness of the issuer on which the credit default swap is based.
Currency Risk - The fund could experience gains or losses solely on changes in the exchange rate between foreign currencies and the U.S. dollar.
Investment Process Risk - Securities selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently than expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments regarding the factors used, the weight placed on each factor, changes from the factors’ historical trends, and technical issues with the construction and implementation of the investment process (including, for example, data problems and/or software or other implementation issues). There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Cash Transactions Risk - The fund may effect its creations and redemptions for cash, rather than for in-kind securities. Therefore, it may be required to sell portfolio securities and subsequently recognize gains on such sales that the fund might not have recognized if it were to distribute portfolio securities in-kind. As such, investments in fund shares may be less tax-efficient than an investment in an ETF that distributes portfolio securities entirely in-kind. Cash transactions may have to be carried out over several days if the securities market is relatively illiquid and may involve considerable brokerage fees and taxes. Brokerage fees and taxes will be higher than if the fund sold and redeemed shares in-kind.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Securities Lending Risk - Securities lending involves the risk of loss of rights in, or delay in recovery of, the loaned securities if the borrower fails to return the security loaned or becomes insolvent.
Authorized Participant Concentration Risk - Only an authorized participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the fund. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as authorized participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no other authorized participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to net asset value (NAV) and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.
Redemption Risk - The fund may need to sell securities at times it would not otherwise do so to meet shareholder redemption requests. Selling securities to meet such redemptions may cause the fund to experience a loss, increase the fund’s transaction costs or have tax consequences. To the extent that a large shareholder (including a fund of funds or 529 college savings plan) invests in the fund, the fund may experience relatively large redemptions as such shareholder reallocates its assets.
Principal Loss Risk - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit avantisinvestors.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | Avantis Core Municipal Fixed Income ETF
Avantis® Core Municipal Fixed Income ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks current income that is exempt from federal income tax.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.15%
Other Expenses1
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.15%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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, that you earn 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:
1 year3 years
$15$48
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 rate 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. Because the fund is new, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate is not available.
Principal Investment Strategies
The fund’s investment process uses an analytical framework, which includes an assessment of securities’ expected income and capital appreciation, to seek securities with high expected returns. The portfolio managers categorize securities within the fund’s investment universe into component groups based on factors such as industry sector, credit rating, duration, country, and currency. The portfolio managers then calculate the expected return implied by the yield curve of each component group, while considering valuation metrics such as yield, duration, and option adjusted spreads. Finally, the portfolio managers adjust the portfolio to arrive at position weightings for each component group with the goal of building a portfolio with enhanced expected return.
Under normal market conditions, the fund will invest at least 80% of its net assets, plus any borrowings for investment purposes, in municipal fixed income securities with interest payments exempt from federal income tax. A municipal fixed income security is a debt obligation issued by or on behalf of a state, its political subdivisions, agencies or instrumentalities, the District of Columbia or a U.S. territory or possession. Municipal securities include revenue bonds, general obligation bonds, municipal lease obligations, and industrial development bonds. The fund may use derivatives, such as futures contracts or swap agreements, to gain or limit exposures. The fund may purchase or sell when-issued, forward-settling, delayed delivery or forward commitment basis.
The fund will invest primarily in investment grade securities as rated by an independent rating agency or determined by the advisor to be of comparable credit quality if a rating is unavailable.
The fund may also engage in securities lending. Collateral received by the fund in connection with loaning its securities may consist of cash and U.S. government securities. Cash collateral may be invested in eligible securities, such as a government money market fund.
The fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) that does not seek to replicate the performance of a specified index. The portfolio managers continually analyze market and financial data to make buy, sell, and hold decisions. When buying or selling a security, the portfolio managers may consider the trade-off between expected returns of the security and implementation or tax costs of the trade in an attempt to gain trading efficiencies, avoid unnecessary risk, and enhance fund performance.
Principal Risks
Interest Rate Risk - Investments in debt securities are also sensitive to interest rate changes. Generally, the value of debt securities and the funds that hold them decline as interest rates rise. The fund is more susceptible to interest rate changes than funds that have
shorter-weighted average maturities, such as money market and short-term bond funds. A period of rising interest rates may negatively affect the fund’s performance.
Credit Risk - The inability or perceived inability of a security’s issuer to make interest and principal payments may cause the value of the security to decrease. As a result, the fund’s share price could also decrease. Changes in the credit rating of a debt security held by the fund could have a similar effect.
Municipal Securities Risk - Because the fund invests principally in municipal securities, it will be sensitive to events that affect municipal markets, including legislative or political changes and the financial condition of the issuers of municipal securities. The fund may have a higher level of risk than funds that invest in a larger universe of securities. Additionally, the novel coronavirus (COVID -19) pandemic has significantly stressed the financial resources of many municipal issuers, which may impair a municipal issuer’s ability to meet its financial obligations when due and could adversely impact the value of its bonds, which could negatively impact the performance of the fund.
Investment Process Risk - Securities selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently than expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments regarding the factors used, the weight placed on each factor, changes from the factors’ historical trends, and technical issues with the construction and implementation of the investment process (including, for example, data problems and/or software or other implementation issues). There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Cash Transactions Risk - The fund may effect its creations and redemptions for cash, rather than for in-kind securities. Therefore, it may be required to sell portfolio securities and subsequently recognize gains on such sales that the fund might not have recognized if it were to distribute portfolio securities in-kind. As such, investments in fund shares may be less tax-efficient than an investment in an ETF that distributes portfolio securities entirely in-kind. Cash transactions may have to be carried out over several days if the securities market is relatively illiquid and may involve considerable brokerage fees and taxes. Brokerage fees and taxes will be higher than if the fund sold and redeemed shares in-kind.
Tax Risk - Some or all of the fund’s income may be subject to the federal alternative minimum tax. There is no guarantee that all of the fund’s income will remain exempt from federal or state income taxes. Income from municipal bonds held by a fund could be declared taxable because of unfavorable changes in tax laws, adverse interpretations by the Internal Revenue Service or state tax authorities, or noncompliant conduct of a bond issuer. The fund may sell securities that lose their tax-exempt statuses at inopportune times, which may cause tax consequences or a decrease in the fund’s value.
Liquidity Risk - During periods of market turbulence or unusually low trading activity, to meet redemptions, it may be necessary for the fund to sell securities at prices that could have an adverse effect on the fund’s share price. Changing regulatory and market conditions, including increases in interest rates and credit spreads may adversely affect the liquidity of the fund’s investments.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Derivative Risk - The use of derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit and correlation risk. In addition, derivatives can create economic leverage in the fund’s portfolio, which may result in significant volatility and cause the fund to participate in losses (as well as gains) in an amount that exceeds the fund’s initial investment. Certain derivatives have the potential for unlimited loss, regardless of the size of the initial investment. Futures contracts may experience potentially dramatic price changes (losses) and imperfect correlations between the price of the contract and the underlying security, index or currency. Swap agreements subject a fund to counterparty risk. Interest rate swaps could result in losses if the fund does not correctly anticipate interest rate changes. Credit default swaps could result in losses if the fund does not correctly evaluate the creditworthiness of the issuer on which the credit default swap is based.
Securities Lending Risk - Securities lending involves the risk of loss of rights in, or delay in recovery of, the loaned securities if the borrower fails to return the security loaned or becomes insolvent.
Authorized Participant Concentration Risk - Only an authorized participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the fund. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as authorized participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no other authorized participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to net asset value (NAV) and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.
Redemption Risk - The fund may need to sell securities at times it would not otherwise do so to meet shareholder redemption requests. Selling securities to meet such redemptions may cause the fund to experience a loss, increase the fund’s transaction costs or have tax consequences. To the extent that a large shareholder (including a fund of funds or 529 college savings plan) invests in the fund, the fund may experience relatively large redemptions as such shareholder reallocates its assets.
Principal Loss Risk - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit avantisinvestors.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | Avantis Emerging Markets Equity ETF
Avantis® Emerging Markets Equity ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks long-term capital appreciation.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.33%
Other Expenses
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.33%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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, that you earn 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:
1 year3 years5 years10 years
$34$106$186$419
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 rate 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. For the period from September 17, 2019, the fund’s inception, to the fiscal year ended August 31, 2020, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 8% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
The fund invests primarily in a diverse group of companies related to emerging markets across market sectors, industry groups and countries. The fund may invest in companies of all market capitalizations.
The fund seeks securities of companies that it expects to have higher returns by placing an enhanced emphasis on securities of companies with smaller market capitalizations and securities of companies it defines as high profitability or value companies. Conversely, the fund seeks to underweight or exclude securities it expects to have lower returns, such as securities of large companies with lower levels of profitability and higher prices relative to their book values or other financial metrics. To identify small capitalization, high profitability, or value companies, the portfolio managers may use reported and estimated company financials and market data including, but not limited to, shares outstanding, book value and its components, cash flows, revenue, expenses, accruals and income. Value companies may be defined as those with lower price relative to book value ratio or other fundamental value. High profitability companies may be defined as those with higher cash based operating profitability. The portfolio managers may also consider other factors when selecting a security including, industry classification, the past performance of the security relative to other securities, its liquidity, its float, and tax, governance or cost considerations, among others.
Under normal market conditions, the fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in equity securities of companies related to emerging market countries. The fund considers an emerging market country to be any country other than a developed country. However, the fund generally intends to focus its investments in a subset of the emerging markets countries that comprise the MSCI Emerging Markets IMI Index. The countries comprising the index will change from time to time, but as of September 30, 2020 include: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey and United Arab Emirates. To determine whether a company is related to an emerging market country, the portfolio managers will consider various factors, including where the company is headquartered, where the company’s principal operations are located, where the company’s revenues are derived, where the principal trading market is located, the country in which the company was legally organized, and whether the company is in the fund’s benchmark—the MSCI Emerging Markets IMI. The weight given to each of these factors will vary depending on the circumstances in a given case. The fund may invest in securities that are denominated in foreign currencies and may also invest in foreign securities that are represented in the U.S. and other securities markets by American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs), and other similar depositary arrangements.
The fund also may invest in derivative instruments such as futures contracts, currency forwards, and swap agreements. For example, the fund may use futures on securities and U.S. indices to gain exposure to equities to manage cash flows. The fund may also engage in securities lending and invest its collateral in eligible securities.
The fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) that does not seek to replicate the performance of a specified index. The portfolio managers continually analyze market and financial data to make buy, sell, and hold decisions. When buying or selling a security, the portfolio managers may consider the trade-off between expected returns of the security and implementation or tax costs of the trade in an attempt to gain trading efficiencies, avoid unnecessary risk, and enhance fund performance.
Principal Risks
Equity Securities Risk - The value of equity securities, may fluctuate due to changes in investor perception of a specific issuer, changes in the general condition of the stock market, or occurrences of political or economic events that affect equity issuers and the market. Common stock prices may be particularly sensitive to rising interest rates, as the cost of capital rises and borrowing costs increase.
Small-Cap Stock Risk - Smaller companies may have limited financial resources, product lines, markets and have less publicly available information. These securities may trade less frequently and in more limited volumes than larger companies’ securities, leading to higher transaction costs. Smaller companies also may be more sensitive to changing economic conditions, and investments in smaller foreign companies may experience more price volatility.
Currency Risk - The fund could experience gains or losses solely on changes in the exchange rate between foreign currencies and the U.S. dollar.
Emerging Market Risk - Investing in emerging market countries generally is riskier than investing in foreign developed countries. Emerging market countries may have unstable governments, economies that are subject to sudden change, and significant volatility in their financial markets. These countries also may lack the legal, business and social framework to support securities markets.
Foreign Risk - Foreign securities are generally riskier than U.S. securities. Political events (such as civil unrest, national elections and imposition of exchange controls), social and economic events (such as labor strikes and rising inflation), natural disasters and public health emergencies occurring in a country where the fund invests could cause the fund’s investments in that country to experience gains or losses. Securities of foreign issuers may be less liquid, more volatile and harder to value than U.S. securities.
Depositary Receipts Risk - Investment in depositary receipts does not eliminate all the risks inherent in investing in securities of non-U.S. issuers. The market value of depositary receipts is dependent upon the market value of the underlying securities and fluctuations in the relative value of the currencies in which the depositary receipts and the underlying securities are quoted.
Investment Process Risk - Stocks selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently than expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments regarding the factors used, the weight placed on each factor, changes from the factors’ historical trends, and technical issues with the construction and implementation of the investment process (including, for example, data problems and/or software or other implementation issues). There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Cash Transactions Risk - The fund may effect its creations and redemptions for cash, rather than for in-kind securities. Therefore, it may be required to sell portfolio securities and subsequently recognize gains on such sales that the fund might not have recognized if it were to distribute portfolio securities in-kind. As such, investments in fund shares may be less tax-efficient than an investment in an ETF that distributes portfolio securities entirely in-kind. Cash transactions may have to be carried out over several days if the securities market is relatively illiquid and may involve considerable brokerage fees and taxes. Brokerage fees and taxes will be higher than if the fund sold and redeemed shares in-kind.
Style Risk - If at any time the market is not favoring the fund’s investment style, the fund’s gains may not be as big as, or its losses may be bigger than, those of other equity funds using different investment styles.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Derivative Risk - The use of derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit, and correlation risk. Derivative transactions may expose the fund to the effects of leverage, which could increase the fund’s exposure to the market and magnify potential losses, particularly when derivatives are used to enhance return rather than offset risk. Derivatives can also be highly illiquid and difficult to unwind or value, and changes in the value of a derivative held by the fund may not correlate with the value of the underlying instrument or the fund’s other investments.
Securities Lending Risk - Securities lending involves the risk of loss of rights in, or delay in recovery of, the loaned securities if the borrower fails to return the security loaned or becomes insolvent.
Authorized Participant Concentration Risk - Only an authorized participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the fund. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as authorized participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no other authorized participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to net asset value (NAV) and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.
Price Volatility - The value of the fund’s shares may fluctuate significantly in the short term.
Redemption Risk - The fund may need to sell securities at times it would not otherwise do so to meet shareholder redemption requests. Selling securities to meet such redemptions may cause the fund to experience a loss, increase the fund’s transaction costs or have tax consequences. To the extent that a large shareholder (including a fund of funds or 529 college savings plan) invests in the fund, the fund may experience relatively large redemptions as such shareholder reallocates its assets.
Principal Loss - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit avantisinvestors.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | Avantis International Equity ETF
Avantis® International Equity ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks long-term capital appreciation.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.23%
Other Expenses
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.23%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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, that you earn 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:
1 year3 years5 years10 years
$24$74$130$293
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 rate 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. For the period from September 24, 2019, the fund’s inception, to the fiscal year ended August 31, 2020, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 8% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
The fund invests primarily in a diverse group of non-U.S. companies across countries, market sectors and industry groups. The fund may invest in companies of all market capitalizations.
The fund seeks securities of companies that it expects to have higher returns by placing an enhanced emphasis on securities of companies with smaller market capitalizations and securities of companies it defines as high profitability or value companies. Conversely, the fund seeks to underweight or exclude securities it expects to have lower returns, such as securities of large companies with lower levels of profitability and higher prices relative to their book values or other financial metrics. To identify small capitalization, high profitability, or value companies, the portfolio managers may use reported and estimated company financials and market data including, but not limited to, shares outstanding, book value and its components, cash flows, revenue, expenses, accruals and income. Value companies may be defined as those with lower price relative to book value ratio or other fundamental value. High profitability companies may be defined as those with higher cash based operating profitability. The portfolio managers may also consider other factors when selecting a security including, industry classification, the past performance of the security relative to other securities, its liquidity, its float, and tax, governance or cost considerations, among others.
Under normal market conditions, the fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in equity securities. The fund may invest in securities that are denominated in foreign currencies and may also invest in foreign securities that are represented in the U.S. and other securities markets by American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs), and other similar depositary arrangements.
The fund also may invest in derivative instruments such as futures contracts, currency forwards, and swap agreements. For example, the fund may use futures on securities and U.S. indices to gain exposure to equities to manage cash flows. The fund may also engage in securities lending and invest its collateral in eligible securities.
The fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) that does not seek to replicate the performance of a specified index. The portfolio managers continually analyze market and financial data to make buy, sell, and hold decisions. When buying or selling a security, the portfolio managers may consider the trade-off between expected returns of the security and implementation or tax costs of the trade in an attempt to gain trading efficiencies, avoid unnecessary risk, and enhance fund performance.
Principal Risks
Equity Securities Risk - The value of equity securities, may fluctuate due to changes in investor perception of a specific issuer, changes in the general condition of the stock market, or occurrences of political or economic events that affect equity issuers and the market. Common stock prices may be particularly sensitive to rising interest rates, as the cost of capital rises and borrowing costs increase.
Small-Cap Stock Risk - Smaller companies may have limited financial resources, product lines, markets and have less publicly available information. These securities may trade less frequently and in more limited volumes than larger companies’ securities, leading to higher transaction costs. Smaller companies also may be more sensitive to changing economic conditions, and investments in smaller foreign companies may experience more price volatility.
Currency Risk - The fund could experience gains or losses solely on changes in the exchange rate between foreign currencies and the U.S. dollar.
Foreign Risk - Foreign securities are generally riskier than U.S. securities. Political events (such as civil unrest, national elections and imposition of exchange controls), social and economic events (such as labor strikes and rising inflation), natural disasters and public health emergencies occurring in a country where the fund invests could cause the fund’s investments in that country to experience gains or losses. Securities of foreign issuers may be less liquid, more volatile and harder to value than U.S. securities.
Depositary Receipts Risk - Investment in depositary receipts does not eliminate all the risks inherent in investing in securities of non-U.S. issuers. The market value of depositary receipts is dependent upon the market value of the underlying securities and fluctuations in the relative value of the currencies in which the depositary receipts and the underlying securities are quoted.
Investment Process Risk - Stocks selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently than expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments regarding the factors used, the weight placed on each factor, changes from the factors’ historical trends, and technical issues with the construction and implementation of the investment process (including, for example, data problems and/or software or other implementation issues). There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Cash Transactions Risk - The fund may effect its creations and redemptions for cash, rather than for in-kind securities. Therefore, it may be required to sell portfolio securities and subsequently recognize gains on such sales that the fund might not have recognized if it were to distribute portfolio securities in-kind. As such, investments in fund shares may be less tax-efficient than an investment in an ETF that distributes portfolio securities entirely in-kind. Cash transactions may have to be carried out over several days if the securities market is relatively illiquid and may involve considerable brokerage fees and taxes. Brokerage fees and taxes will be higher than if the fund sold and redeemed shares in-kind.
Style Risk - If at any time the market is not favoring the fund’s investment style, the fund’s gains may not be as big as, or its losses may be bigger than, those of other equity funds using different investment styles.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Derivative Risk - The use of derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit, and correlation risk. Derivative transactions may expose the fund to the effects of leverage, which could increase the fund’s exposure to the market and magnify potential losses, particularly when derivatives are used to enhance return rather than offset risk. Derivatives can also be highly illiquid and difficult to unwind or value, and changes in the value of a derivative held by the fund may not correlate with the value of the underlying instrument or the fund’s other investments.
Securities Lending Risk - Securities lending involves the risk of loss of rights in, or delay in recovery of, the loaned securities if the borrower fails to return the security loaned or becomes insolvent.
Authorized Participant Concentration Risk - Only an authorized participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the fund. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as authorized participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no other authorized participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to net asset value (NAV) and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.
Price Volatility - The value of the fund’s shares may fluctuate significantly in the short term.
Redemption Risk - The fund may need to sell securities at times it would not otherwise do so to meet shareholder redemption requests. Selling securities to meet such redemptions may cause the fund to experience a loss, increase the fund’s transaction costs or have tax consequences. To the extent that a large shareholder (including a fund of funds or 529 college savings plan) invests in the fund, the fund may experience relatively large redemptions as such shareholder reallocates its assets.
Principal Loss - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit avantisinvestors.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | Avantis International Small Cap Value ETF
Avantis® International Small Cap Value ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks long-term capital appreciation.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.36%
Other Expenses
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.36%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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, that you earn 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:
1 year3 years5 years10 years
$37$116$202$456
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 rate 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. For the period from September 24, 2019, the fund’s inception, to the fiscal year ended August 31, 2020, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 32% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
The fund invests primarily in a diverse group of non-U.S. small cap value companies across market sectors, industry groups, and countries.
The fund seeks securities of companies that it expects to have higher returns by placing an enhanced emphasis on securities of companies with smaller market capitalizations and securities of companies it defines as high profitability or value companies. Conversely, the fund seeks to underweight or exclude securities it expects to have lower returns, such as securities of large companies with lower levels of profitability and higher prices relative to their book values or other financial metrics. To identify small capitalization, high profitability, or value companies, the portfolio managers may use reported and estimated company financials and market data including, but not limited to, shares outstanding, book value and its components, cash flows, revenue, expenses, accruals and income. Value companies may be defined as those with lower price relative to book value ratio or other fundamental value. High profitability companies may be defined as those with higher cash based operating profitability. The portfolio managers may also consider other factors when selecting a security including, industry classification, the past performance of the security relative to other securities, its liquidity, its float, and tax, governance or cost considerations, among others.
When selecting investments for the fund, the portfolio managers consider the distribution of market capitalization of all companies in each country in which the fund invests, meaning that a company of a given size may be considered small in one country, but not in another. Under normal market conditions, the fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in securities of small capitalization companies. For purposes of the fund’s 80% test, small cap companies include companies with market capitalizations not greater than that of the largest company on the MSCI World ex USA Small Cap Index at the time of investment. Though capitalizations will change from time to time, as of September 30, 2020, the total market capitalization of the largest company in the index was $9.7 billion.
The fund may invest in securities that are denominated in foreign currencies and may also invest in foreign securities that are represented in the U.S. and other securities markets by American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs), and other similar depositary arrangements.
The fund also may invest in derivative instruments such as futures contracts, currency forwards, and swap agreements. For example, the fund may use futures on securities and U.S. indices to gain exposure to equities to manage cash flows. The fund may also engage in securities lending and invest its collateral in eligible securities.
The fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) that does not seek to replicate the performance of a specified index. The portfolio managers continually analyze market and financial data to make buy, sell, and hold decisions. When buying or selling a security, the portfolio managers may consider the trade-off between expected returns of the security and implementation or tax costs of the trade in an attempt to gain trading efficiencies, avoid unnecessary risk, and enhance fund performance.
Principal Risks
Equity Securities Risk - The value of equity securities, may fluctuate due to changes in investor perception of a specific issuer, changes in the general condition of the stock market, or occurrences of political or economic events that affect equity issuers and the market. Common stock prices may be particularly sensitive to rising interest rates, as the cost of capital rises and borrowing costs increase.
Small-Cap Stock Risk - Smaller companies may have limited financial resources, product lines, markets and have less publicly available information. These securities may trade less frequently and in more limited volumes than larger companies’ securities, leading to higher transaction costs. Smaller companies also may be more sensitive to changing economic conditions, and investments in smaller foreign companies may experience more price volatility.
Foreign Risk - Foreign securities are generally riskier than U.S. securities. Political events (such as civil unrest, national elections and imposition of exchange controls), social and economic events (such as labor strikes and rising inflation), natural disasters and public health emergencies occurring in a country where the fund invests could cause the fund’s investments in that country to experience gains or losses. Securities of foreign issuers may be less liquid, more volatile and harder to value than U.S. securities.
Depositary Receipts Risk - Investment in depositary receipts does not eliminate all the risks inherent in investing in securities of non-U.S. issuers. The market value of depositary receipts is dependent upon the market value of the underlying securities and fluctuations in the relative value of the currencies in which the depositary receipts and the underlying securities are quoted.
Investment Process Risk - Stocks selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently than expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments regarding the factors used, the weight placed on each factor, changes from the factors’ historical trends, and technical issues with the construction and implementation of the investment process (including, for example, data problems and/or software or other implementation issues). There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Cash Transactions Risk - The fund may effect its creations and redemptions for cash, rather than for in-kind securities. Therefore, it may be required to sell portfolio securities and subsequently recognize gains on such sales that the fund might not have recognized if it were to distribute portfolio securities in-kind. As such, investments in fund shares may be less tax-efficient than an investment in an ETF that distributes portfolio securities entirely in-kind. Cash transactions may have to be carried out over several days if the securities market is relatively illiquid and may involve considerable brokerage fees and taxes. Brokerage fees and taxes will be higher than if the fund sold and redeemed shares in-kind.
Style Risk - If at any time the market is not favoring the fund’s investment style, the fund’s gains may not be as big as, or its losses may be bigger than, those of other equity funds using different investment styles.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Derivative Risk - The use of derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit, and correlation risk. Derivative transactions may expose the fund to the effects of leverage, which could increase the fund’s exposure to the market and magnify potential losses, particularly when derivatives are used to enhance return rather than offset risk. Derivatives can also be highly illiquid and difficult to unwind or value, and changes in the value of a derivative held by the fund may not correlate with the value of the underlying instrument or the fund’s other investments.
Securities Lending Risk - Securities lending involves the risk of loss of rights in, or delay in recovery of, the loaned securities if the borrower fails to return the security loaned or becomes insolvent.
Authorized Participant Concentration Risk - Only an authorized participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the fund. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as authorized participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no other authorized participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to net asset value (NAV) and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.
Price Volatility - The value of the fund’s shares may fluctuate significantly in the short term.
Redemption Risk - The fund may need to sell securities at times it would not otherwise do so to meet shareholder redemption requests. Selling securities to meet such redemptions may cause the fund to experience a loss, increase the fund’s transaction costs or have tax consequences. To the extent that a large shareholder (including a fund of funds or 529 college savings plan) invests in the fund, the fund may experience relatively large redemptions as such shareholder reallocates its assets.
Principal Loss - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit avantisinvestors.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | Avantis Short-Term Fixed Income ETF
Avantis® Short-Term Fixed Income ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks to maximize total return.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.15%
Other Expenses1
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.15%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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, that you earn 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:
1 year3 years
$15$48
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 rate 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. Because the fund is new, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate is not available.
Principal Investment Strategies
The fund invests primarily in investment grade quality debt obligations from a diverse group of U.S. and non-U.S. issuers.
The fund’s investment process uses an analytical framework, which includes an assessment of securities’ expected income and capital appreciation, to seek securities with high expected returns. The portfolio managers categorize securities within the fund’s investment universe into component groups based on factors such as industry sector, credit rating, duration, country, and currency. The portfolio managers then calculate the expected return implied by the yield curve of each component group, while considering valuation metrics such as yield, duration, and option adjusted spreads. Finally, the portfolio managers adjust the portfolio to arrive at position weightings for each component group with the goal of building a portfolio with enhanced expected return.
Under normal market conditions, the fund will invest at least 80% of its net assets, plus any borrowings for investment purposes, in fixed income securities. Fixed income securities in which the fund may invest include corporate bonds and notes issued by U.S. and foreign corporations, securities issued by governments and their agencies, instrumentalities, or sponsored corporations—including supranational organizations. The fund may also invest in derivative instruments such as futures contracts or swap agreements, including credit default swaps, credit default swap indexes, and total return swaps.
The fund expects to maintain a weighted average maturity of three years or less. The fund will invest primarily in investment grade securities as rated by an independent rating agency or determined by the advisor to be of comparable credit quality if a rating is unavailable.
The fund may engage in foreign currency transactions on a spot basis and may also use currency forward contracts to hedge exposure to foreign currencies. The fund may purchase or sell when-issued, forward-settling, delayed delivery or forward commitment obligations. The fund may invest more than 25% of its total assets in U.S. Treasury, federal agencies and instrumentalities obligations.
The fund may also engage in securities lending. Collateral received by the fund in connection with loaning its securities may consist of cash and U.S. government securities. Cash collateral may be invested in eligible securities, such as a government money market fund.
The fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) that does not seek to replicate the performance of a specified index. The portfolio managers continually analyze market and financial data to make buy, sell, and hold decisions. When buying or selling a security, the portfolio managers may consider the trade-off between expected returns of the security and implementation or tax costs of the trade in an attempt to gain trading efficiencies, avoid unnecessary risk, and enhance fund performance.
Principal Risks
Interest Rate Risk - Investments in debt securities are also sensitive to interest rate changes. Generally, the value of debt securities and the funds that hold them decline as interest rates rise. The fund is more susceptible to interest rate changes than funds that have shorter-weighted average maturities, such as money market and short-term bond funds. A period of rising interest rates may negatively affect the fund’s performance.
Credit Risk - The inability or perceived inability of a security’s issuer to make interest and principal payments may cause the value of the security to decrease. As a result, the fund’s share price could also decrease. Changes in the credit rating of a debt security held by the fund could have a similar effect.
Liquidity Risk - During periods of market turbulence or unusually low trading activity, it may be necessary for the fund to sell securities at prices that could have an adverse effect on the fund. The market for lower-quality debt securities is generally less liquid than the market for higher-quality securities. Changing regulatory and market conditions, including increases in interest rates and credit spreads may adversely affect the liquidity of the fund’s investments.
Prepayment Risk - The fund may invest in debt securities backed by mortgages or assets such as auto loan, home equity loan or student loan receivables. These underlying obligations may be prepaid, as when a homeowner refinances a mortgage to take advantage of declining interest rates. If so, the fund must reinvest prepayments at current rates, which may be less than the rate of the prepaid mortgage. Because of this prepayment risk, the fund may benefit less from declining interest rates than funds of similar duration that invest less heavily in mortgage- and asset-backed securities.
Foreign Risk - Foreign securities are generally riskier than U.S. securities. Political events (such as civil unrest, national elections and imposition of exchange controls), social and economic events (such as labor strikes and rising inflation), natural disasters and public health emergencies occurring in a country where the fund invests could cause the fund’s investments in that country to experience gains or losses. Securities of foreign issuers may be less liquid, more volatile and harder to value than U.S. securities.
Derivatives Risk - The use of derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit and correlation risk. In addition, derivatives can create economic leverage in the fund’s portfolio, which may result in significant volatility and cause the fund to participate in losses (as well as gains) in an amount that exceeds the fund’s initial investment. Certain derivatives have the potential for unlimited loss, regardless of the size of the initial investment. Futures contracts may experience potentially dramatic price changes (losses) and imperfect correlations between the price of the contract and the underlying security, index or currency. Swap agreements subject a fund to counterparty risk. Interest rate swaps could result in losses if the fund does not correctly anticipate interest rate changes. Credit default swaps could result in losses if the fund does not correctly evaluate the creditworthiness of the issuer on which the credit default swap is based.
Currency Risk - The fund could experience gains or losses solely on changes in the exchange rate between foreign currencies and the U.S. dollar.
Investment Process Risk - Securities selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently than expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments regarding the factors used, the weight placed on each factor, changes from the factors’ historical trends, and technical issues with the construction and implementation of the investment process (including, for example, data problems and/or software or other implementation issues). There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Cash Transactions Risk - The fund may effect its creations and redemptions for cash, rather than for in-kind securities. Therefore, it may be required to sell portfolio securities and subsequently recognize gains on such sales that the fund might not have recognized if it were to distribute portfolio securities in-kind. As such, investments in fund shares may be less tax-efficient than an investment in an ETF that distributes portfolio securities entirely in-kind. Cash transactions may have to be carried out over several days if the securities market is relatively illiquid and may involve considerable brokerage fees and taxes. Brokerage fees and taxes will be higher than if the fund sold and redeemed shares in-kind.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Securities Lending Risk - Securities lending involves the risk of loss of rights in, or delay in recovery of, the loaned securities if the borrower fails to return the security loaned or becomes insolvent.
Authorized Participant Concentration Risk - Only an authorized participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the fund. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as authorized participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no other authorized participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to net asset value (NAV) and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.
Redemption Risk - The fund may need to sell securities at times it would not otherwise do so to meet shareholder redemption requests. Selling securities to meet such redemptions may cause the fund to experience a loss, increase the fund’s transaction costs or have tax consequences. To the extent that a large shareholder (including a fund of funds or 529 college savings plan) invests in the fund, the fund may experience relatively large redemptions as such shareholder reallocates its assets.
Principal Loss Risk - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit avantisinvestors.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | Avantis U.S. Equity ETF
Avantis® U.S. Equity ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks long-term capital appreciation.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.15%
Other Expenses
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.15%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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, that you earn 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:
1 year3 years5 years10 years
$15$48$85$192
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 rate 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. For the period from September 24, 2019, the fund’s inception, to the fiscal year ended August 31, 2020, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 3% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
The fund invests primarily in a diverse group of U.S. companies across market sectors and industry groups. The fund may invest in companies of all market capitalizations.
The fund seeks securities of companies that it expects to have higher returns by placing an enhanced emphasis on securities of companies with smaller market capitalizations and securities of companies it defines as high profitability or value companies. Conversely, the fund seeks to underweight or exclude securities it expects to have lower returns, such as securities of large companies with lower levels of profitability and higher prices relative to their book values or other financial metrics. To identify small capitalization, high profitability, or value companies, the portfolio managers may use reported and estimated company financials and market data including, but not limited to, shares outstanding, book value and its components, cash flows, revenue, expenses, accruals and income. Value companies may be defined as those with lower price relative to book value ratio or other fundamental value. High profitability companies may be defined as those with higher cash based operating profitability. The portfolio managers may also consider other factors when selecting a security including, industry classification, the past performance of the security relative to other securities, its liquidity, its float, and tax, governance or cost considerations, among others.
Under normal market conditions, the fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in equity securities of U.S. companies. To determine whether a company is a U.S. company, the portfolio managers will consider various factors, including where the company is headquartered, where the company’s principal operations are located, where the company’s revenues are derived, where the principal trading market is located, the country in which the company was legally organized, and whether the company is in the fund’s benchmark—the Russell 3000® Index.
The fund also may invest in derivative instruments such as futures contracts, currency forwards, and swap agreements. For example, the fund may use futures on securities and U.S. indices to gain exposure to equities to manage cash flows. The fund may also engage in securities lending and invest its collateral in eligible securities.
The fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) that does not seek to replicate the performance of a specified index. The portfolio managers continually analyze market and financial data to make buy, sell, and hold decisions. When buying or selling a security, the portfolio managers may consider the trade-off between expected returns of the security and implementation or tax costs of the trade in an attempt to gain trading efficiencies, avoid unnecessary risk, and enhance fund performance.
Principal Risks
Equity Securities Risk - The value of equity securities, may fluctuate due to changes in investor perception of a specific issuer, changes in the general condition of the stock market, or occurrences of political or economic events that affect equity issuers and the market. Common stock prices may be particularly sensitive to rising interest rates, as the cost of capital rises and borrowing costs increase.
Small-Cap Stock Risk - Smaller companies may have limited financial resources, product lines, markets and have less publicly available information. These securities may trade less frequently and in more limited volumes than larger companies’ securities, leading to higher transaction costs. Smaller companies also may be more sensitive to changing economic conditions, and investments in smaller foreign companies may experience more price volatility.
Investment Process Risk - Stocks selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently than expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments regarding the factors used, the weight placed on each factor, changes from the factors’ historical trends, and technical issues with the construction and implementation of the investment process (including, for example, data problems and/or software or other implementation issues). There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Cash Transactions Risk - The fund may effect its creations and redemptions for cash, rather than for in-kind securities. Therefore, it may be required to sell portfolio securities and subsequently recognize gains on such sales that the fund might not have recognized if it were to distribute portfolio securities in-kind. As such, investments in fund shares may be less tax-efficient than an investment in an ETF that distributes portfolio securities entirely in-kind. Cash transactions may have to be carried out over several days if the securities market is relatively illiquid and may involve considerable brokerage fees and taxes. Brokerage fees and taxes will be higher than if the fund sold and redeemed shares in-kind.
Style Risk - If at any time the market is not favoring the fund’s investment style, the fund’s gains may not be as big as, or its losses may be bigger than, those of other equity funds using different investment styles.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Derivative Risk - The use of derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit, and correlation risk. Derivative transactions may expose the fund to the effects of leverage, which could increase the fund’s exposure to the market and magnify potential losses, particularly when derivatives are used to enhance return rather than offset risk. Derivatives can also be highly illiquid and difficult to unwind or value, and changes in the value of a derivative held by the fund may not correlate with the value of the underlying instrument or the fund’s other investments.
Securities Lending Risk - Securities lending involves the risk of loss of rights in, or delay in recovery of, the loaned securities if the borrower fails to return the security loaned or becomes insolvent.
Authorized Participant Concentration Risk - Only an authorized participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the fund. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as authorized participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no other authorized participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to net asset value (NAV) and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.
Price Volatility - The value of the fund’s shares may fluctuate significantly in the short term.
Redemption Risk - The fund may need to sell securities at times it would not otherwise do so to meet shareholder redemption requests. Selling securities to meet such redemptions may cause the fund to experience a loss, increase the fund’s transaction costs or have tax consequences. To the extent that a large shareholder (including a fund of funds or 529 college savings plan) invests in the fund, the fund may experience relatively large redemptions as such shareholder reallocates its assets.
Principal Loss - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit avantisinvestors.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | Avantis U.S. Small Cap Value ETF
Avantis® U.S. Small Cap Value ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks long-term capital appreciation.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.25%
Other Expenses
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.25%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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, that you earn 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:
1 year3 years5 years10 years
$26$81$141$319
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 rate 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. For the period from September 24, 2019, the fund’s inception, to the fiscal year ended August 31, 2020, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 20% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
The fund invests primarily in a diverse group of U.S. small cap companies across market sectors and industry groups.
The fund seeks securities of companies that it expects to have higher returns by placing an enhanced emphasis on securities of companies with smaller market capitalizations and securities of companies it defines as high profitability or value companies. Conversely, the fund seeks to underweight or exclude securities it expects to have lower returns, such as securities of large companies with lower levels of profitability and higher prices relative to their book values or other financial metrics. To identify small capitalization, high profitability, or value companies, the portfolio managers may use reported and estimated company financials and market data including, but not limited to, shares outstanding, book value and its components, cash flows, revenue, expenses, accruals and income. Value companies may be defined as those with lower price relative to book value ratio or other fundamental value. High profitability companies may be defined as those with higher cash based operating profitability. The portfolio managers may also consider other factors when selecting a security including, industry classification, the past performance of the security relative to other securities, its liquidity, its float, and tax, governance or cost considerations, among others.
Under normal market conditions, the fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in securities of small capitalization companies located in the United States. To determine whether a company is a U.S. company, the portfolio managers will consider various factors, including where the company is headquartered, where the company’s principal operations are located, where the company’s revenues are derived, where the principal trading market is located, the country in which the company was legally organized, and whether the company is in the fund’s benchmark—the Russell 2000® Value Index. Currently, companies smaller than the largest 1000 U.S. companies or companies representing the bottom 10% of the market capitalization of all U.S. listed companies or companies in the fund’s benchmark may be considered U.S. small capitalization companies. Though market capitalizations will change from time to time, as of September 30, 2020, the largest company that could be considered a small capitalization company for purposes of this 80% test had a total market capitalization of approximately $10.0 billion.
The fund also may invest in derivative instruments such as futures contracts, currency forwards, and swap agreements. For example, the fund may use futures on securities and U.S. indices to gain exposure to equities to manage cash flows. The fund may also engage in securities lending and invest its collateral in eligible securities.
The fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) that does not seek to replicate the performance of a specified index. The portfolio managers continually analyze market and financial data to make buy, sell, and hold decisions. When buying or selling a
security, the portfolio managers may consider the trade-off between expected returns of the security and implementation or tax costs of the trade in an attempt to gain trading efficiencies, avoid unnecessary risk, and enhance fund performance.
Principal Risks
Equity Securities Risk - The value of equity securities, may fluctuate due to changes in investor perception of a specific issuer, changes in the general condition of the stock market, or occurrences of political or economic events that affect equity issuers and the market. Common stock prices may be particularly sensitive to rising interest rates, as the cost of capital rises and borrowing costs increase.
Small-Cap Stock Risk - Smaller companies may have limited financial resources, product lines, markets and have less publicly available information. These securities may trade less frequently and in more limited volumes than larger companies’ securities, leading to higher transaction costs. Smaller companies also may be more sensitive to changing economic conditions, and investments in smaller foreign companies may experience more price volatility.
Investment Process Risk - Stocks selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently than expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments regarding the factors used, the weight placed on each factor, changes from the factors’ historical trends, and technical issues with the construction and implementation of the investment process (including, for example, data problems and/or software or other implementation issues). There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Cash Transactions Risk - The fund may effect its creations and redemptions for cash, rather than for in-kind securities. Therefore, it may be required to sell portfolio securities and subsequently recognize gains on such sales that the fund might not have recognized if it were to distribute portfolio securities in-kind. As such, investments in fund shares may be less tax-efficient than an investment in an ETF that distributes portfolio securities entirely in-kind. Cash transactions may have to be carried out over several days if the securities market is relatively illiquid and may involve considerable brokerage fees and taxes. Brokerage fees and taxes will be higher than if the fund sold and redeemed shares in-kind.
Style Risk - If at any time the market is not favoring the fund’s investment style, the fund’s gains may not be as big as, or its losses may be bigger than, those of other equity funds using different investment styles.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Derivative Risk - The use of derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit, and correlation risk. Derivative transactions may expose the fund to the effects of leverage, which could increase the fund’s exposure to the market and magnify potential losses, particularly when derivatives are used to enhance return rather than offset risk. Derivatives can also be highly illiquid and difficult to unwind or value, and changes in the value of a derivative held by the fund may not correlate with the value of the underlying instrument or the fund’s other investments.
Securities Lending Risk - Securities lending involves the risk of loss of rights in, or delay in recovery of, the loaned securities if the borrower fails to return the security loaned or becomes insolvent.
Authorized Participant Concentration Risk - Only an authorized participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the fund. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as authorized participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no other authorized participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to net asset value (NAV) and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally.
Price Volatility - The value of the fund’s shares may fluctuate significantly in the short term.
Redemption Risk - The fund may need to sell securities at times it would not otherwise do so to meet shareholder redemption requests. Selling securities to meet such redemptions may cause the fund to experience a loss, increase the fund’s transaction costs or have tax consequences. To the extent that a large shareholder (including a fund of funds or 529 college savings plan) invests in the fund, the fund may experience relatively large redemptions as such shareholder reallocates its assets.
Principal Loss - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit avantisinvestors.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | Avantis Core Fixed Income Fund
Avantis® Core Fixed Income Fund
Investment Objective
The fund seeks to maximize total return.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Institutional Class G Class
Management Fee0.15%0.15%
Other Expenses1
0.00%0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.15%0.15%
Fee WaiverNone0.15%²
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses After Waiver0.15%0.00%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs 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, that you earn a 5% return each year, and that the fund’s operating expenses remain the same, except that it reflects the rate and duration of any fee waivers noted in the table above. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
1 year3 years
Institutional Class$15$48
G Class$0$0
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 rate 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. Because the fund is new, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate is not available.
Principal Investment Strategies
The fund invests primarily in investment grade quality debt obligations from a diverse group of U.S. and non-U.S. issuers.
The fund’s investment process uses an analytical framework, which includes an assessment of securities’ expected income and capital appreciation, to seek securities with high expected returns. The portfolio managers categorize securities within the fund’s investment universe into component groups based on factors such as industry sector, credit rating, duration, country, and currency. The portfolio managers then calculate the expected return implied by the yield curve of each component group, while considering valuation metrics such as yield, duration, and option adjusted spreads. Finally, the portfolio managers adjust the portfolio to arrive at position weightings for each component group with the goal of building a portfolio with enhanced expected return.
Under normal market conditions, the fund will invest at least 80% of its net assets, plus any borrowings for investment purposes, in fixed income securities. Fixed income securities in which the fund may invest include corporate bonds and notes issued by U.S. and foreign corporations, securities issued by governments and their agencies, instrumentalities, or sponsored corporations—including supranational organizations. The fund may also invest in derivative instruments such as futures contracts or swap agreements, including credit default swaps, credit default swap indexes, and total return swaps.
The fund will invest primarily in investment grade securities as rated by an independent rating agency or determined by the advisor to be of comparable credit quality if a rating is unavailable. The fund expects to maintain a weighted average duration within 2 years of the weighted average duration of its benchmark, the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond index, as calculated by the manager. Duration is used to assess the sensitivity of a security’s price to changes in interest rates.
The fund may engage in foreign currency transactions on a spot basis and may also use currency forward contracts to hedge exposure to foreign currencies. The fund may purchase or sell when-issued, forward-settling, delayed delivery or forward commitment obligations. The fund may invest more than 25% of its total assets in U.S. Treasury, federal agencies and instrumentalities obligations.
The fund may also engage in securities lending. Collateral received by the fund in connection with loaning its securities may consist of cash and U.S. government securities. Cash collateral may be invested in eligible securities, such as a government money market fund.
The portfolio managers continually analyze market and financial data to make buy, sell, and hold decisions. When buying or selling a security, the portfolio managers may consider the trade-off between expected returns of the security and implementation or tax costs of the trade in an attempt to gain trading efficiencies, avoid unnecessary risk, and enhance fund performance.
Principal Risks
Interest Rate Risk - Investments in debt securities are also sensitive to interest rate changes. Generally, the value of debt securities and the funds that hold them decline as interest rates rise. The fund is more susceptible to interest rate changes than funds that have shorter-weighted average maturities, such as money market and short-term bond funds. A period of rising interest rates may negatively affect the fund’s performance.
Credit Risk - The inability or perceived inability of a security’s issuer to make interest and principal payments may cause the value of the security to decrease. As a result, the fund’s share price could also decrease. Changes in the credit rating of a debt security held by the fund could have a similar effect.
Liquidity Risk - During periods of market turbulence or unusually low trading activity, it may be necessary for the fund to sell securities at prices that could have an adverse effect on the fund. The market for lower-quality debt securities is generally less liquid than the market for higher-quality securities. Changing regulatory and market conditions, including increases in interest rates and credit spreads may adversely affect the liquidity of the fund’s investments.
Prepayment Risk - The fund may invest in debt securities backed by mortgages or assets such as auto loan, home equity loan or student loan receivables. These underlying obligations may be prepaid, as when a homeowner refinances a mortgage to take advantage of declining interest rates. If so, the fund must reinvest prepayments at current rates, which may be less than the rate of the prepaid mortgage. Because of this prepayment risk, the fund may benefit less from declining interest rates than funds of similar duration that invest less heavily in mortgage- and asset-backed securities.
Foreign Risk - Foreign securities are generally riskier than U.S. securities. Political events (such as civil unrest, national elections and imposition of exchange controls), social and economic events (such as labor strikes and rising inflation), natural disasters and public health emergencies occurring in a country where the fund invests could cause the fund’s investments in that country to experience gains or losses. Securities of foreign issuers may be less liquid, more volatile and harder to value than U.S. securities.
Derivatives Risk - The use of derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit and correlation risk. In addition, derivatives can create economic leverage in the fund’s portfolio, which may result in significant volatility and cause the fund to participate in losses (as well as gains) in an amount that exceeds the fund’s initial investment. Certain derivatives have the potential for unlimited loss, regardless of the size of the initial investment. Futures contracts may experience potentially dramatic price changes (losses) and imperfect correlations between the price of the contract and the underlying security, index or currency. Swap agreements subject a fund to counterparty risk. Interest rate swaps could result in losses if the fund does not correctly anticipate interest rate changes. Credit default swaps could result in losses if the fund does not correctly evaluate the creditworthiness of the issuer on which the credit default swap is based.
Currency Risk - The fund could experience gains or losses solely on changes in the exchange rate between foreign currencies and the U.S. dollar.
Investment Process Risk - Securities selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently than expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments regarding the factors used, the weight placed on each factor, changes from the factors’ historical trends, and technical issues with the construction and implementation of the investment process (including, for example, data problems and/or software or other implementation issues). There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments.
Securities Lending Risk - Securities lending involves the risk of loss of rights in, or delay in recovery of, the loaned securities if the borrower fails to return the security loaned or becomes insolvent.
Redemption Risk - The fund may need to sell securities at times it would not otherwise do so to meet shareholder redemption requests. Selling securities to meet such redemptions may cause the fund to experience a loss, increase the fund’s transaction costs or have tax consequences. To the extent that a large shareholder (including a fund of funds or 529 college savings plan) invests in the fund, the fund may experience relatively large redemptions as such shareholder reallocates its assets.
Principal Loss Risk - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit avantisinvestors.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | Avantis Core Municipal Fixed Income Fund
Avantis® Core Municipal Fixed Income Fund
Investment Objective
The fund seeks current income that is exempt from federal income tax.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Institutional Class G Class
Management Fee0.15%0.15%
Other Expenses1
0.00%0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.15%0.15%
Fee WaiverNone0.15%²
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses After Waiver0.15%0.00%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs 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, that you earn a 5% return each year, and that the fund’s operating expenses remain the same, except that it reflects the rate and duration of any fee waivers noted in the table above. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
1 year3 years
Institutional Class$15$48
G Class$0$0
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 rate 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. Because the fund is new, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate is not available.
Principal Investment Strategies
The fund’s investment process uses an analytical framework, which includes an assessment of securities’ expected income and capital appreciation, to seek securities with high expected returns. The portfolio managers categorize securities within the fund’s investment universe into component groups based on factors such as industry sector, credit rating, duration, country, and currency. The portfolio managers then calculate the expected return implied by the yield curve of each component group, while considering valuation metrics such as yield, duration, and option adjusted spreads. Finally, the portfolio managers adjust the portfolio to arrive at position weightings for each component group with the goal of building a portfolio with enhanced expected return.
Under normal market conditions, the fund will invest at least 80% of its net assets, plus any borrowings for investment purposes, in municipal fixed income securities with interest payments exempt from federal income tax. A municipal fixed income security is a debt obligation issued by or on behalf of a state, its political subdivisions, agencies or instrumentalities, the District of Columbia or a U.S. territory or possession. Municipal securities include revenue bonds, general obligation bonds, municipal lease obligations, and industrial development bonds. The fund may use derivatives, such as futures contracts or swap agreements, to gain or limit exposures. The fund may purchase or sell when-issued, forward-settling, delayed delivery or forward commitment basis.
The fund will invest primarily in investment grade securities as rated by an independent rating agency or determined by the advisor to be of comparable credit quality if a rating is unavailable.
The fund may also engage in securities lending. Collateral received by the fund in connection with loaning its securities may consist of cash and U.S. government securities. Cash collateral may be invested in eligible securities, such as a government money market fund.
The portfolio managers continually analyze market and financial data to make buy, sell, and hold decisions. When buying or selling a security, the portfolio managers may consider the trade-off between expected returns of the security and implementation or tax costs of the trade in an attempt to gain trading efficiencies, avoid unnecessary risk, and enhance fund performance.
Principal Risks
Interest Rate Risk - Investments in debt securities are also sensitive to interest rate changes. Generally, the value of debt securities and the funds that hold them decline as interest rates rise. The fund is more susceptible to interest rate changes than funds that have shorter-weighted average maturities, such as money market and short-term bond funds. A period of rising interest rates may negatively affect the fund’s performance.
Credit Risk - The inability or perceived inability of a security’s issuer to make interest and principal payments may cause the value of the security to decrease. As a result, the fund’s share price could also decrease. Changes in the credit rating of a debt security held by the fund could have a similar effect.
Municipal Securities Risk - Because the fund invests principally in municipal securities, it will be sensitive to events that affect municipal markets, including legislative or political changes and the financial condition of the issuers of municipal securities. The fund may have a higher level of risk than funds that invest in a larger universe of securities. Additionally, the novel coronavirus (COVID -19) pandemic has significantly stressed the financial resources of many municipal issuers, which may impair a municipal issuer’s ability to meet its financial obligations when due and could adversely impact the value of its bonds, which could negatively impact the performance of the fund.
Investment Process Risk - Securities selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently than expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments regarding the factors used, the weight placed on each factor, changes from the factors’ historical trends, and technical issues with the construction and implementation of the investment process (including, for example, data problems and/or software or other implementation issues). There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Tax Risk - Some or all of the fund’s income may be subject to the federal alternative minimum tax. There is no guarantee that all of the fund’s income will remain exempt from federal or state income taxes. Income from municipal bonds held by a fund could be declared taxable because of unfavorable changes in tax laws, adverse interpretations by the Internal Revenue Service or state tax authorities, or noncompliant conduct of a bond issuer. The fund may sell securities that lose their tax-exempt statuses at inopportune times, which may cause tax consequences or a decrease in the fund’s value.
Liquidity Risk - During periods of market turbulence or unusually low trading activity, to meet redemptions, it may be necessary for the fund to sell securities at prices that could have an adverse effect on the fund’s share price. Changing regulatory and market conditions, including increases in interest rates and credit spreads may adversely affect the liquidity of the fund’s investments.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments.
Derivative Risk - The use of derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit and correlation risk. In addition, derivatives can create economic leverage in the fund’s portfolio, which may result in significant volatility and cause the fund to participate in losses (as well as gains) in an amount that exceeds the fund’s initial investment. Certain derivatives have the potential for unlimited loss, regardless of the size of the initial investment. Futures contracts may experience potentially dramatic price changes (losses) and imperfect correlations between the price of the contract and the underlying security, index or currency. Swap agreements subject a fund to counterparty risk. Interest rate swaps could result in losses if the fund does not correctly anticipate interest rate changes. Credit default swaps could result in losses if the fund does not correctly evaluate the creditworthiness of the issuer on which the credit default swap is based.
Securities Lending Risk - Securities lending involves the risk of loss of rights in, or delay in recovery of, the loaned securities if the borrower fails to return the security loaned or becomes insolvent.
Redemption Risk - The fund may need to sell securities at times it would not otherwise do so to meet shareholder redemption requests. Selling securities to meet such redemptions may cause the fund to experience a loss, increase the fund’s transaction costs or have tax consequences. To the extent that a large shareholder (including a fund of funds or 529 college savings plan) invests in the fund, the fund may experience relatively large redemptions as such shareholder reallocates its assets.
Principal Loss Risk - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit avantisinvestors.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | Avantis Emerging Markets Equity Fund
Avantis® Emerging Markets Equity Fund
Investment Objective
The fund seeks long-term capital appreciation.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Institutional Class G Class
Management Fee0.33%0.33%
Other Expenses0.00%0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.33%0.33%
Fee WaiverNone0.33%¹
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses After Waiver0.33%0.00%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs 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, that you earn a 5% return each year, and that the fund’s operating expenses remain the same, except that it reflects the rate and duration of any fee waivers noted in the table above. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
1 year3 years5 years10 years
Institutional Class$34$106$186$419
G Class$0$0$0$0
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 rate 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. For the period from December 4, 2019, the fund’s inception, to the fiscal year ended August 31, 2020, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 4% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
The fund invests primarily in a diverse group of companies related to emerging markets across market sectors, industry groups and countries. The fund may invest in companies of all market capitalizations.
The fund seeks securities of companies that it expects to have higher returns by placing an enhanced emphasis on securities of companies with smaller market capitalizations and securities of companies it defines as high profitability or value companies. Conversely, the fund seeks to underweight or exclude securities it expects to have lower returns, such as securities of large companies with lower levels of profitability and higher prices relative to their book values or other financial metrics. To identify small capitalization, high profitability, or value companies, the portfolio managers may use reported and estimated company financials and market data including, but not limited to, shares outstanding, book value and its components, cash flows, revenue, expenses, accruals and income. Value companies may be defined as those with lower price relative to book value ratio or other fundamental value. High profitability companies may be defined as those with higher cash based operating profitability. The portfolio managers may also consider other factors when selecting a security including, industry classification, the past performance of the security relative to other securities, its liquidity, its float, and tax, governance or cost considerations, among others.
Under normal market conditions, the fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in equity securities of companies related to emerging market countries. The fund considers an emerging market country to be any country other than a developed country. However, the fund generally intends to focus its investments in a subset of the emerging markets countries that comprise the MSCI Emerging Markets IMI Index. The countries comprising the index will change from time to time, but as of September 30, 2020 include: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey and United Arab Emirates.
To determine whether a company is related to an emerging market country, the portfolio managers will consider various factors, including where the company is headquartered, where the company’s principal operations are located, where the company’s revenues are derived, where the principal trading market is located, the country in which the company was legally organized, and whether the company is in the fund’s benchmark—the MSCI Emerging Markets IMI. The weight given to each of these factors will vary depending on the circumstances in a given case. The fund may invest in securities that are denominated in foreign currencies and may also invest in foreign securities that are represented in the U.S. and other securities markets by American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs), and other similar depositary arrangements.
The fund also may invest in derivative instruments such as futures contracts, currency forwards, and swap agreements. For example, the fund may use futures on securities and U.S. indices to gain exposure to equities to manage cash flows. The fund may also engage in securities lending and invest its collateral in eligible securities.
The portfolio managers continually analyze market and financial data to make buy, sell, and hold decisions. When buying or selling a security, the portfolio managers may consider the trade-off between expected returns of the security and implementation or tax costs of the trade in an attempt to gain trading efficiencies, avoid unnecessary risk, and enhance fund performance.
Principal Risks
Equity Securities Risk - The value of equity securities, may fluctuate due to changes in investor perception of a specific issuer, changes in the general condition of the stock market, or occurrences of political or economic events that affect equity issuers and the market. Common stock prices may be particularly sensitive to rising interest rates, as the cost of capital rises and borrowing costs increase.
Small-Cap Stock Risk - Smaller companies may have limited financial resources, product lines, markets and have less publicly available information. These securities may trade less frequently and in more limited volumes than larger companies’ securities, leading to higher transaction costs. Smaller companies also may be more sensitive to changing economic conditions, and investments in smaller foreign companies may experience more price volatility.
Currency Risk - The fund could experience gains or losses solely on changes in the exchange rate between foreign currencies and the U.S. dollar.
Emerging Market Risk - Investing in emerging market countries generally is riskier than investing in foreign developed countries. Emerging market countries may have unstable governments, economies that are subject to sudden change, and significant volatility in their financial markets. These countries also may lack the legal, business and social framework to support securities markets.
Foreign Risk - Foreign securities are generally riskier than U.S. securities. Political events (such as civil unrest, national elections and imposition of exchange controls), social and economic events (such as labor strikes and rising inflation), natural disasters and public health emergencies occurring in a country where the fund invests could cause the fund’s investments in that country to experience gains or losses. Securities of foreign issuers may be less liquid, more volatile and harder to value than U.S. securities.
Depositary Receipts Risk - Investment in depositary receipts does not eliminate all the risks inherent in investing in securities of non-U.S. issuers. The market value of depositary receipts is dependent upon the market value of the underlying securities and fluctuations in the relative value of the currencies in which the depositary receipts and the underlying securities are quoted.
Investment Process Risk - Stocks selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently than expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments regarding the factors used, the weight placed on each factor, changes from the factors’ historical trends, and technical issues with the construction and implementation of the investment process (including, for example, data problems and/or software or other implementation issues). There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Style Risk - If at any time the market is not favoring the fund’s investment style, the fund’s gains may not be as big as, or its losses may be bigger than, those of other equity funds using different investment styles.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments.
Derivative Risk - The use of derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit, and correlation risk. Derivative transactions may expose the fund to the effects of leverage, which could increase the fund’s exposure to the market and magnify potential losses, particularly when derivatives are used to enhance return
rather than offset risk. Derivatives can also be highly illiquid and difficult to unwind or value, and changes in the value of a derivative held by the fund may not correlate with the value of the underlying instrument or the fund’s other investments.
Securities Lending Risk - Securities lending involves the risk of loss of rights in, or delay in recovery of, the loaned securities if the borrower fails to return the security loaned or becomes insolvent.
Price Volatility - The value of the fund’s shares may fluctuate significantly in the short term.
Redemption Risk - The fund may need to sell securities at times it would not otherwise do so to meet shareholder redemption requests. Selling securities to meet such redemptions may cause the fund to experience a loss, increase the fund’s transaction costs or have tax consequences. To the extent that a large shareholder (including a fund of funds or 529 college savings plan) invests in the fund, the fund may experience relatively large redemptions as such shareholder reallocates its assets.
Principal Loss - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit avantisinvestors.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | Avantis International Equity Fund
Avantis® International Equity Fund
Investment Objective
The fund seeks long-term capital appreciation.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Institutional Class G Class
Management Fee0.23%0.23%
Other Expenses0.00%0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.23%0.23%
Fee WaiverNone0.23%¹
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses After Waiver0.23%0.00%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs 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, that you earn a 5% return each year, and that the fund’s operating expenses remain the same, except that it reflects the rate and duration of any fee waivers noted in the table above. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
1 year3 years5 years10 years
Institutional Class$24$74$130$293
G Class$0$0$0$0
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 rate 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. For the period from December 4, 2019, the fund’s inception, to the fiscal year ended August 31, 2020, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 2% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
The fund invests primarily in a diverse group of non-U.S. companies across countries, market sectors and industry groups. The fund may invest in companies of all market capitalizations.
The fund seeks securities of companies that it expects to have higher returns by placing an enhanced emphasis on securities of companies with smaller market capitalizations and securities of companies it defines as high profitability or value companies. Conversely, the fund seeks to underweight or exclude securities it expects to have lower returns, such as securities of large companies with lower levels of profitability and higher prices relative to their book values or other financial metrics. To identify small capitalization, high profitability, or value companies, the portfolio managers may use reported and estimated company financials and market data including, but not limited to, shares outstanding, book value and its components, cash flows, revenue, expenses, accruals and income. Value companies may be defined as those with lower price relative to book value ratio or other fundamental value. High profitability companies may be defined as those with higher cash based operating profitability. The portfolio managers may also consider other factors when selecting a security including, industry classification, the past performance of the security relative to other securities, its liquidity, its float, and tax, governance or cost considerations, among others.
Under normal market conditions, the fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in equity securities. The fund may invest in securities that are denominated in foreign currencies and may also invest in foreign securities that are represented in the U.S. and other securities markets by American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs), and other similar depositary arrangements.
The fund also may invest in derivative instruments such as futures contracts, currency forwards, and swap agreements. For example, the fund may use futures on securities and U.S. indices to gain exposure to equities to manage cash flows. The fund may also engage in securities lending and invest its collateral in eligible securities.
The portfolio managers continually analyze market and financial data to make buy, sell, and hold decisions. When buying or selling a security, the portfolio managers may consider the trade-off between expected returns of the security and implementation or tax costs of the trade in an attempt to gain trading efficiencies, avoid unnecessary risk, and enhance fund performance.
Principal Risks
Equity Securities Risk - The value of equity securities, may fluctuate due to changes in investor perception of a specific issuer, changes in the general condition of the stock market, or occurrences of political or economic events that affect equity issuers and the market. Common stock prices may be particularly sensitive to rising interest rates, as the cost of capital rises and borrowing costs increase.
Small-Cap Stock Risk - Smaller companies may have limited financial resources, product lines, markets and have less publicly available information. These securities may trade less frequently and in more limited volumes than larger companies’ securities, leading to higher transaction costs. Smaller companies also may be more sensitive to changing economic conditions, and investments in smaller foreign companies may experience more price volatility.
Currency Risk - The fund could experience gains or losses solely on changes in the exchange rate between foreign currencies and the U.S. dollar.
Foreign Risk - Foreign securities are generally riskier than U.S. securities. Political events (such as civil unrest, national elections and imposition of exchange controls), social and economic events (such as labor strikes and rising inflation), natural disasters and public health emergencies occurring in a country where the fund invests could cause the fund’s investments in that country to experience gains or losses. Securities of foreign issuers may be less liquid, more volatile and harder to value than U.S. securities.
Depositary Receipts Risk - Investment in depositary receipts does not eliminate all the risks inherent in investing in securities of non-U.S. issuers. The market value of depositary receipts is dependent upon the market value of the underlying securities and fluctuations in the relative value of the currencies in which the depositary receipts and the underlying securities are quoted.
Investment Process Risk - Stocks selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently than expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments regarding the factors used, the weight placed on each factor, changes from the factors’ historical trends, and technical issues with the construction and implementation of the investment process (including, for example, data problems and/or software or other implementation issues). There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Style Risk - If at any time the market is not favoring the fund’s investment style, the fund’s gains may not be as big as, or its losses may be bigger than, those of other equity funds using different investment styles.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments.
Derivative Risk - The use of derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit, and correlation risk. Derivative transactions may expose the fund to the effects of leverage, which could increase the fund’s exposure to the market and magnify potential losses, particularly when derivatives are used to enhance return rather than offset risk. Derivatives can also be highly illiquid and difficult to unwind or value, and changes in the value of a derivative held by the fund may not correlate with the value of the underlying instrument or the fund’s other investments.
Securities Lending Risk - Securities lending involves the risk of loss of rights in, or delay in recovery of, the loaned securities if the borrower fails to return the security loaned or becomes insolvent.
Price Volatility - The value of the fund’s shares may fluctuate significantly in the short term.
Redemption Risk - The fund may need to sell securities at times it would not otherwise do so to meet shareholder redemption requests. Selling securities to meet such redemptions may cause the fund to experience a loss, increase the fund’s transaction costs or have tax consequences. To the extent that a large shareholder (including a fund of funds or 529 college savings plan) invests in the fund, the fund may experience relatively large redemptions as such shareholder reallocates its assets.
Principal Loss - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit avantisinvestors.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | Avantis International Small Cap Value Fund
Avantis® International Small Cap Value Fund
Investment Objective
The fund seeks long-term capital appreciation.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Institutional Class G Class
Management Fee0.36%0.36%
Other Expenses0.00%0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.36%0.36%
Fee WaiverNone0.36%¹
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses After Waiver0.36%0.00%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs 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, that you earn a 5% return each year, and that the fund’s operating expenses remain the same, except that it reflects the rate and duration of any fee waivers noted in the table above. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
1 year3 years5 years10 years
Institutional Class$37$116$202$456
G Class$0$0$0$0
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 rate 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. For the period from December 4, 2019, the fund’s inception, to the fiscal year ended August 31, 2020, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 12% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
The fund invests primarily in a diverse group of non-U.S. small cap value companies across market sectors, industry groups, and countries.
The fund seeks securities of companies that it expects to have higher returns by placing an enhanced emphasis on securities of companies with smaller market capitalizations and securities of companies it defines as high profitability or value companies. Conversely, the fund seeks to underweight or exclude securities it expects to have lower returns, such as securities of large companies with lower levels of profitability and higher prices relative to their book values or other financial metrics. To identify small capitalization, high profitability, or value companies, the portfolio managers may use reported and estimated company financials and market data including, but not limited to, shares outstanding, book value and its components, cash flows, revenue, expenses, accruals and income. Value companies may be defined as those with lower price relative to book value ratio or other fundamental value. High profitability companies may be defined as those with higher cash based operating profitability. The portfolio managers may also consider other factors when selecting a security including, industry classification, the past performance of the security relative to other securities, its liquidity, its float, and tax, governance or cost considerations, among others.
When selecting investments for the fund, the portfolio managers consider the distribution of market capitalization of all companies in each country in which the fund invests, meaning that a company of a given size may be considered small in one country, but not in another. Under normal market conditions, the fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in securities of small capitalization companies. For purposes of the fund’s 80% test, small cap companies include companies with market capitalizations not greater than that of the largest company on the MSCI World ex USA Small Cap Index at the time of investment. Though capitalizations will change from time to time, as of September 30, 2020, the total market capitalization of the largest company in the index was $9.7 billion.
The fund may invest in securities that are denominated in foreign currencies and may also invest in foreign securities that are represented in the U.S. and other securities markets by American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs), and other similar depositary arrangements.
The fund also may invest in derivative instruments such as futures contracts, currency forwards, and swap agreements. For example, the fund may use futures on securities and U.S. indices to gain exposure to equities to manage cash flows. The fund may also engage in securities lending and invest its collateral in eligible securities.
The portfolio managers continually analyze market and financial data to make buy, sell, and hold decisions. When buying or selling a security, the portfolio managers may consider the trade-off between expected returns of the security and implementation or tax costs of the trade in an attempt to gain trading efficiencies, avoid unnecessary risk, and enhance fund performance.
Principal Risks
Equity Securities Risk - The value of equity securities, may fluctuate due to changes in investor perception of a specific issuer, changes in the general condition of the stock market, or occurrences of political or economic events that affect equity issuers and the market. Common stock prices may be particularly sensitive to rising interest rates, as the cost of capital rises and borrowing costs increase.
Small-Cap Stock Risk - Smaller companies may have limited financial resources, product lines, markets and have less publicly available information. These securities may trade less frequently and in more limited volumes than larger companies’ securities, leading to higher transaction costs. Smaller companies also may be more sensitive to changing economic conditions, and investments in smaller foreign companies may experience more price volatility.
Foreign Risk - Foreign securities are generally riskier than U.S. securities. Political events (such as civil unrest, national elections and imposition of exchange controls), social and economic events (such as labor strikes and rising inflation), natural disasters and public health emergencies occurring in a country where the fund invests could cause the fund’s investments in that country to experience gains or losses. Securities of foreign issuers may be less liquid, more volatile and harder to value than U.S. securities.
Depositary Receipts Risk - Investment in depositary receipts does not eliminate all the risks inherent in investing in securities of non-U.S. issuers. The market value of depositary receipts is dependent upon the market value of the underlying securities and fluctuations in the relative value of the currencies in which the depositary receipts and the underlying securities are quoted.
Investment Process Risk - Stocks selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently than expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments regarding the factors used, the weight placed on each factor, changes from the factors’ historical trends, and technical issues with the construction and implementation of the investment process (including, for example, data problems and/or software or other implementation issues). There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Style Risk - If at any time the market is not favoring the fund’s investment style, the fund’s gains may not be as big as, or its losses may be bigger than, those of other equity funds using different investment styles.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments.
Derivative Risk - The use of derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit, and correlation risk. Derivative transactions may expose the fund to the effects of leverage, which could increase the fund’s exposure to the market and magnify potential losses, particularly when derivatives are used to enhance return rather than offset risk. Derivatives can also be highly illiquid and difficult to unwind or value, and changes in the value of a derivative held by the fund may not correlate with the value of the underlying instrument or the fund’s other investments.
Securities Lending Risk - Securities lending involves the risk of loss of rights in, or delay in recovery of, the loaned securities if the borrower fails to return the security loaned or becomes insolvent.
Price Volatility - The value of the fund’s shares may fluctuate significantly in the short term.
Redemption Risk - The fund may need to sell securities at times it would not otherwise do so to meet shareholder redemption requests. Selling securities to meet such redemptions may cause the fund to experience a loss, increase the fund’s transaction costs or have tax consequences. To the extent that a large shareholder (including a fund of funds or 529 college savings plan) invests in the fund, the fund may experience relatively large redemptions as such shareholder reallocates its assets.
Principal Loss - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit avantisinvestors.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | Avantis Short-Term Fixed Income Fund
Avantis® Short-Term Fixed Income Fund
Investment Objective
The fund seeks to maximize total return.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Institutional Class G Class
Management Fee0.15%0.15%
Other Expenses1
0.00%0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.15%0.15%
Fee WaiverNone0.15%²
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses After Waiver0.15%0.00%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs 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, that you earn a 5% return each year, and that the fund’s operating expenses remain the same, except that it reflects the rate and duration of any fee waivers noted in the table above. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
1 year3 years
Institutional Class$15$48
G Class$0$0
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 rate 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. Because the fund is new, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate is not available.
Principal Investment Strategies
The fund invests primarily in investment grade quality debt obligations from a diverse group of U.S. and non-U.S. issuers.
The fund’s investment process uses an analytical framework, which includes an assessment of securities’ expected income and capital appreciation, to seek securities with high expected returns. The portfolio managers categorize securities within the fund’s investment universe into component groups based on factors such as industry sector, credit rating, duration, country, and currency. The portfolio managers then calculate the expected return implied by the yield curve of each component group, while considering valuation metrics such as yield, duration, and option adjusted spreads. Finally, the portfolio managers adjust the portfolio to arrive at position weightings for each component group with the goal of building a portfolio with enhanced expected return.
Under normal market conditions, the fund will invest at least 80% of its net assets, plus any borrowings for investment purposes, in fixed income securities. Fixed income securities in which the fund may invest include corporate bonds and notes issued by U.S. and foreign corporations, securities issued by governments and their agencies, instrumentalities, or sponsored corporations—including supranational organizations. The fund may also invest in derivative instruments such as futures contracts or swap agreements, including credit default swaps, credit default swap indexes, and total return swaps.
The fund expects to maintain a weighted average maturity of three years or less. The fund will invest primarily in investment grade securities as rated by an independent rating agency or determined by the advisor to be of comparable credit quality if a rating is unavailable.
The fund may engage in foreign currency transactions on a spot basis and may also use currency forward contracts to hedge exposure to foreign currencies. The fund may purchase or sell when-issued, forward-settling, delayed delivery or forward commitment obligations. The fund may invest more than 25% of its total assets in U.S. Treasury, federal agencies and instrumentalities obligations.
The fund may also engage in securities lending. Collateral received by the fund in connection with loaning its securities may consist of cash and U.S. government securities. Cash collateral may be invested in eligible securities, such as a government money market fund.
The portfolio managers continually analyze market and financial data to make buy, sell, and hold decisions. When buying or selling a security, the portfolio managers may consider the trade-off between expected returns of the security and implementation or tax costs of the trade in an attempt to gain trading efficiencies, avoid unnecessary risk, and enhance fund performance.
Principal Risks
Interest Rate Risk - Investments in debt securities are also sensitive to interest rate changes. Generally, the value of debt securities and the funds that hold them decline as interest rates rise. The fund is more susceptible to interest rate changes than funds that have shorter-weighted average maturities, such as money market and short-term bond funds. A period of rising interest rates may negatively affect the fund’s performance.
Credit Risk - The inability or perceived inability of a security’s issuer to make interest and principal payments may cause the value of the security to decrease. As a result, the fund’s share price could also decrease. Changes in the credit rating of a debt security held by the fund could have a similar effect.
Liquidity Risk - During periods of market turbulence or unusually low trading activity, it may be necessary for the fund to sell securities at prices that could have an adverse effect on the fund. The market for lower-quality debt securities is generally less liquid than the market for higher-quality securities. Changing regulatory and market conditions, including increases in interest rates and credit spreads may adversely affect the liquidity of the fund’s investments.
Prepayment Risk - The fund may invest in debt securities backed by mortgages or assets such as auto loan, home equity loan or student loan receivables. These underlying obligations may be prepaid, as when a homeowner refinances a mortgage to take advantage of declining interest rates. If so, the fund must reinvest prepayments at current rates, which may be less than the rate of the prepaid mortgage. Because of this prepayment risk, the fund may benefit less from declining interest rates than funds of similar duration that invest less heavily in mortgage- and asset-backed securities.
Foreign Risk - Foreign securities are generally riskier than U.S. securities. Political events (such as civil unrest, national elections and imposition of exchange controls), social and economic events (such as labor strikes and rising inflation), natural disasters and public health emergencies occurring in a country where the fund invests could cause the fund’s investments in that country to experience gains or losses. Securities of foreign issuers may be less liquid, more volatile and harder to value than U.S. securities.
Derivatives Risk - The use of derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit and correlation risk. In addition, derivatives can create economic leverage in the fund’s portfolio, which may result in significant volatility and cause the fund to participate in losses (as well as gains) in an amount that exceeds the fund’s initial investment. Certain derivatives have the potential for unlimited loss, regardless of the size of the initial investment. Futures contracts may experience potentially dramatic price changes (losses) and imperfect correlations between the price of the contract and the underlying security, index or currency. Swap agreements subject a fund to counterparty risk. Interest rate swaps could result in losses if the fund does not correctly anticipate interest rate changes. Credit default swaps could result in losses if the fund does not correctly evaluate the creditworthiness of the issuer on which the credit default swap is based.
Currency Risk - The fund could experience gains or losses solely on changes in the exchange rate between foreign currencies and the U.S. dollar.
Investment Process Risk - Securities selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently than expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments regarding the factors used, the weight placed on each factor, changes from the factors’ historical trends, and technical issues with the construction and implementation of the investment process (including, for example, data problems and/or software or other implementation issues). There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments.
Securities Lending Risk - Securities lending involves the risk of loss of rights in, or delay in recovery of, the loaned securities if the borrower fails to return the security loaned or becomes insolvent.
Redemption Risk - The fund may need to sell securities at times it would not otherwise do so to meet shareholder redemption requests. Selling securities to meet such redemptions may cause the fund to experience a loss, increase the fund’s transaction costs or have tax consequences. To the extent that a large shareholder (including a fund of funds or 529 college savings plan) invests in the fund, the fund may experience relatively large redemptions as such shareholder reallocates its assets.
Principal Loss Risk - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit avantisinvestors.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | Avantis U.S. Equity Fund
Avantis® U.S. Equity Fund
Investment Objective
The fund seeks long-term capital appreciation.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Institutional Class G Class
Management Fee0.15%0.15%
Other Expenses0.00%0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.15%0.15%
Fee WaiverNone0.15%¹
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses After Waiver0.15%0.00%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs 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, that you earn a 5% return each year, and that the fund’s operating expenses remain the same, except that it reflects the rate and duration of any fee waivers noted in the table above. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
1 year3 years5 years10 years
Institutional Class$15$48$85$192
G Class$0$0$0$0
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 rate 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. For the period from December 4, 2019, the fund’s inception, to the fiscal year ended August 31, 2020, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 3% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
The fund invests primarily in a diverse group of U.S. companies across market sectors and industry groups. The fund may invest in companies of all market capitalizations.
The fund seeks securities of companies that it expects to have higher returns by placing an enhanced emphasis on securities of companies with smaller market capitalizations and securities of companies it defines as high profitability or value companies. Conversely, the fund seeks to underweight or exclude securities it expects to have lower returns, such as securities of large companies with lower levels of profitability and higher prices relative to their book values or other financial metrics. To identify small capitalization, high profitability, or value companies, the portfolio managers may use reported and estimated company financials and market data including, but not limited to, shares outstanding, book value and its components, cash flows, revenue, expenses, accruals and income. Value companies may be defined as those with lower price relative to book value ratio or other fundamental value. High profitability companies may be defined as those with higher cash based operating profitability. The portfolio managers may also consider other factors when selecting a security including, industry classification, the past performance of the security relative to other securities, its liquidity, its float, and tax, governance or cost considerations, among others.
Under normal market conditions, the fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in equity securities of U.S. companies. To determine whether a company is a U.S. company, the portfolio managers will consider various factors, including where the company is headquartered, where the company’s principal operations are located, where the company’s revenues are derived, where the principal trading market is located, the country in which the company was legally organized, and whether the company is in the fund’s benchmark—the Russell 3000® Index.
The fund also may invest in derivative instruments such as futures contracts, currency forwards, and swap agreements. For example, the fund may use futures on securities and U.S. indices to gain exposure to equities to manage cash flows. The fund may also engage in securities lending and invest its collateral in eligible securities.
The portfolio managers continually analyze market and financial data to make buy, sell, and hold decisions. When buying or selling a security, the portfolio managers may consider the trade-off between expected returns of the security and implementation or tax costs of the trade in an attempt to gain trading efficiencies, avoid unnecessary risk, and enhance fund performance.
Principal Risks
Equity Securities Risk - The value of equity securities, may fluctuate due to changes in investor perception of a specific issuer, changes in the general condition of the stock market, or occurrences of political or economic events that affect equity issuers and the market. Common stock prices may be particularly sensitive to rising interest rates, as the cost of capital rises and borrowing costs increase.
Small-Cap Stock Risk - Smaller companies may have limited financial resources, product lines, markets and have less publicly available information. These securities may trade less frequently and in more limited volumes than larger companies’ securities, leading to higher transaction costs. Smaller companies also may be more sensitive to changing economic conditions, and investments in smaller foreign companies may experience more price volatility.
Investment Process Risk - Stocks selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently than expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments regarding the factors used, the weight placed on each factor, changes from the factors’ historical trends, and technical issues with the construction and implementation of the investment process (including, for example, data problems and/or software or other implementation issues). There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Style Risk - If at any time the market is not favoring the fund’s investment style, the fund’s gains may not be as big as, or its losses may be bigger than, those of other equity funds using different investment styles.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments.
Derivative Risk - The use of derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit, and correlation risk. Derivative transactions may expose the fund to the effects of leverage, which could increase the fund’s exposure to the market and magnify potential losses, particularly when derivatives are used to enhance return rather than offset risk. Derivatives can also be highly illiquid and difficult to unwind or value, and changes in the value of a derivative held by the fund may not correlate with the value of the underlying instrument or the fund’s other investments.
Securities Lending Risk - Securities lending involves the risk of loss of rights in, or delay in recovery of, the loaned securities if the borrower fails to return the security loaned or becomes insolvent.
Price Volatility - The value of the fund’s shares may fluctuate significantly in the short term.
Redemption Risk - The fund may need to sell securities at times it would not otherwise do so to meet shareholder redemption requests. Selling securities to meet such redemptions may cause the fund to experience a loss, increase the fund’s transaction costs or have tax consequences. To the extent that a large shareholder (including a fund of funds or 529 college savings plan) invests in the fund, the fund may experience relatively large redemptions as such shareholder reallocates its assets.
Principal Loss - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit avantisinvestors.com.Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | Avantis U.S. Small Cap Value Fund
Avantis® U.S. Small Cap Value Fund
Investment Objective
The fund seeks long-term capital appreciation.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Institutional Class G Class
Management Fee0.25%0.25%
Other Expenses0.00%0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.25%0.25%
Fee WaiverNone0.25%¹
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses After Waiver0.25%0.00%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs 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, that you earn a 5% return each year, and that the fund’s operating expenses remain the same, except that it reflects the rate and duration of any fee waivers noted in the table above. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
1 year3 years5 years10 years
Institutional Class$26$81$141$319
G Class$0$0$0$0
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 rate 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. For the period from December 4, 2019, the fund’s inception, to the fiscal year ended August 31, 2020, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 4% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
The fund invests primarily in a diverse group of U.S. small cap companies across market sectors and industry groups.
The fund seeks securities of companies that it expects to have higher returns by placing an enhanced emphasis on securities of companies with smaller market capitalizations and securities of companies it defines as high profitability or value companies. Conversely, the fund seeks to underweight or exclude securities it expects to have lower returns, such as securities of large companies with lower levels of profitability and higher prices relative to their book values or other financial metrics. To identify small capitalization, high profitability, or value companies, the portfolio managers may use reported and estimated company financials and market data including, but not limited to, shares outstanding, book value and its components, cash flows, revenue, expenses, accruals and income. Value companies may be defined as those with lower price relative to book value ratio or other fundamental value. High profitability companies may be defined as those with higher cash based operating profitability. The portfolio managers may also consider other factors when selecting a security including, industry classification, the past performance of the security relative to other securities, its liquidity, its float, and tax, governance or cost considerations, among others.
Under normal market conditions, the fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in securities of small capitalization companies located in the United States. To determine whether a company is a U.S. company, the portfolio managers will consider various factors, including where the company is headquartered, where the company’s principal operations are located, where the company’s revenues are derived, where the principal trading market is located, the country in which the company was legally organized, and whether the company is in the fund’s benchmark—the Russell 2000® Value Index. Currently, companies smaller than the largest 1000 U.S. companies or companies representing the bottom 10% of the market capitalization of all U.S. listed companies or companies in the fund’s benchmark may be considered U.S. small capitalization companies. Though market capitalizations will change from time to
time, as of September 30, 2020, the largest company that could be considered a small capitalization company for purposes of this 80% test had a total market capitalization of approximately $10.0 billion.
The fund also may invest in derivative instruments such as futures contracts, currency forwards, and swap agreements. For example, the fund may use futures on securities and U.S. indices to gain exposure to equities to manage cash flows. The fund may also engage in securities lending and invest its collateral in eligible securities.
The portfolio managers continually analyze market and financial data to make buy, sell, and hold decisions. When buying or selling a security, the portfolio managers may consider the trade-off between expected returns of the security and implementation or tax costs of the trade in an attempt to gain trading efficiencies, avoid unnecessary risk, and enhance fund performance.
Principal Risks
Equity Securities Risk - The value of equity securities, may fluctuate due to changes in investor perception of a specific issuer, changes in the general condition of the stock market, or occurrences of political or economic events that affect equity issuers and the market. Common stock prices may be particularly sensitive to rising interest rates, as the cost of capital rises and borrowing costs increase.
Small-Cap Stock Risk - Smaller companies may have limited financial resources, product lines, markets and have less publicly available information. These securities may trade less frequently and in more limited volumes than larger companies’ securities, leading to higher transaction costs. Smaller companies also may be more sensitive to changing economic conditions, and investments in smaller foreign companies may experience more price volatility.
Investment Process Risk - Stocks selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently than expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments regarding the factors used, the weight placed on each factor, changes from the factors’ historical trends, and technical issues with the construction and implementation of the investment process (including, for example, data problems and/or software or other implementation issues). There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Style Risk - If at any time the market is not favoring the fund’s investment style, the fund’s gains may not be as big as, or its losses may be bigger than, those of other equity funds using different investment styles.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments.
Derivative Risk - The use of derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional instruments. Derivatives are subject to a number of risks, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit, and correlation risk. Derivative transactions may expose the fund to the effects of leverage, which could increase the fund’s exposure to the market and magnify potential losses, particularly when derivatives are used to enhance return rather than offset risk. Derivatives can also be highly illiquid and difficult to unwind or value, and changes in the value of a derivative held by the fund may not correlate with the value of the underlying instrument or the fund’s other investments.
Securities Lending Risk - Securities lending involves the risk of loss of rights in, or delay in recovery of, the loaned securities if the borrower fails to return the security loaned or becomes insolvent.
Price Volatility - The value of the fund’s shares may fluctuate significantly in the short term.
Redemption Risk - The fund may need to sell securities at times it would not otherwise do so to meet shareholder redemption requests. Selling securities to meet such redemptions may cause the fund to experience a loss, increase the fund’s transaction costs or have tax consequences. To the extent that a large shareholder (including a fund of funds or 529 college savings plan) invests in the fund, the fund may experience relatively large redemptions as such shareholder reallocates its assets.
Principal Loss - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual
total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit avantisinvestors.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | American Century Focused Dynamic Growth ETF
American Century® Focused Dynamic Growth ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks long-term capital growth.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.45%
Other Expenses1
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.45%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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, that you earn 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:
1 year3 years
$46$145
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 rate 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. For the period from March 31, 2020, the fund’s inception, to the fiscal year ended August 31, 2020, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 27% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
The portfolio managers look for liquid stocks of early and rapid stage growth companies they believe will increase in value over time. The portfolio managers make their investment decisions based primarily on their fundamental analysis of individual companies, rather than on broad economic forecasts. Management of the fund is based on the belief that, over the long term, stock price movements follow growth in earnings, revenues and/or cash flow. The fund will invest primarily in securities of large cap companies, but may invest in companies of any market capitalization. The fund normally invests in a relatively limited number of companies, generally 30 to 45 securities, but may incorporate more securities to account for liquidity constraints.
The fund will invest principally in U.S. exchange-listed common stocks and American Depositary Receipts (ADRs). The fund uses ADRs to obtain exposure to foreign securities. ADRs are issued by a U.S. financial institution (depositary) and evidence ownership in a security or pool of securities issued by a foreign issuer that have been deposited with the depositary. The fund may only invest in exchange-traded ADRs that are registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and trade on a U.S. exchange contemporaneously with the fund’s shares.
The portfolio managers use a variety of analytical research tools and techniques to identify the stocks of companies that meet their investment criteria. Under normal market conditions, the portfolio managers seek securities of companies whose earnings or revenues are not only growing, but growing at an accelerated pace. This includes companies whose growth rates are expected to accelerate relative to factors including recent trends, market expectations, peers and historical data. Among other variables, the portfolio managers will consider the fund’s growth and momentum profile relative to the benchmark, the Russell 1000 Growth Index. These techniques help the portfolio managers buy or hold the stocks of companies they believe have favorable growth prospects and sell the stocks of companies whose characteristics no longer meet their criteria. The fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) that does not seek to replicate the performance of a specified index.
The fund may engage in active and frequent trading of portfolio securities to achieve its principal investment strategies. This may cause higher transaction costs and may affect performance. It may also result in the realization and distribution of capital gains.
Principal Risks
Portfolio Transparency Risk -  Unlike traditional ETFs, the fund does not tell the public what assets it holds each day. Instead, the fund provides a verified intraday indicative value (VIIV), calculated and disseminated every second throughout the trading day. The VIIV is intended to provide investors with enough information to allow for an effective arbitrage mechanism that will keep the market price of the fund’s shares trading at or close to the underlying net asset value (NAV) per share of the fund. There is, however, a risk, which may increase during periods of market disruption or volatility, that market prices will vary significantly from the underlying NAV of the fund. Similarly, because the fund’s shares trade on the basis of a published VIIV, they may trade at a wider bid/ask spread than shares of ETFs that publish their portfolios on a daily basis, especially during periods of market disruption or volatility, and therefore, may cost investors more to trade. Although the fund seeks to benefit from keeping its portfolio information secret, some market participants may attempt to use the VIIV to identify the fund’s trading strategy, which if successful, could result in such market participants engaging in certain predatory trading practices that may have the potential to harm the fund and its shareholders. The fund’s website will contain a historical comparison of each Business Day’s final VIIV to that Business Day’s NAV and the specific methodology for calculating the VIIV.
Trading Issues Risk - Trading in fund shares on the Listing Exchange may be halted in certain circumstances. If at any time the securities representing 10% or more of the fund’s portfolio become subject to a trading halt or otherwise do not have a readily available market quotations, the fund’s advisor will request the Listing Exchange to halt trading of the fund. There may be other instances that require a trading halt specific to the VIIV. If there is a discrepancy of sufficient magnitude in the fund’s VIIV calculation, the fund’s advisor will request the Listing Exchange to halt trading. This “circuit breaker” is designed to prevent the VIIV from reflecting outlier prices. For more information see “The Verified Indicative Intraday Value” section below.
Early Close/Trading Halt Risk - An exchange or market may close early or issue trading halts on portfolio securities. In times of market volatility, if trading is halted in some of the securities that the fund holds, there may be a disconnect between the market price of those securities and the market price of the fund. If at any time the securities representing 10% or more of the fund’s portfolio become subject to a trading halt or otherwise do not have readily available market quotations, the fund’s advisor will request the Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc. (Listing Exchange) to halt trading on the fund, meaning that investors would not be able to trade their shares. During any such trading halt, the VIIV would continue to be calculated and disseminated. Trading halts may have a greater impact on the fund than traditional ETFs because of its lack of transparency. Additionally, the fund’s advisor monitors the bid and ask quotations for the securities the fund holds, and, if it determines that such a security does not have readily available market quotations (such as during an extended trading halt), it will post that fact and the name and weighting of that security in the fund’s VIIV calculation on the fund’s web site. This information should permit market participants to calculate the effect of that security on the VIIV calculation, determine their own fair value of the disclosed portfolio security, and better judge the accuracy of that day’s VIIV for the fund. An extended trading halt in a portfolio security could exacerbate discrepancies between the VIIV and the fund’s NAV.
Authorized Participant/ Authorized Participant Representative Concentration Risk - The creation and redemption process for the fund occurs through a confidential brokerage account (Confidential Account) with an agent, called an AP Representative, on behalf of an Authorized Participant. Each day, the AP Representative will be given the names and quantities of the securities to be deposited, in the case of a creation, or redeemed, in the case of a redemption (Creation Basket), allowing the AP Representative to buy and sell positions in the portfolio securities to permit creations or redemptions on the Authorized Participant’s behalf, without disclosing the information to the Authorized Participant. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as Authorized Participants and AP Representatives, none of which are obligated to engage in creation or redemption transactions. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no other Authorized Participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to NAV and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally. The fact that the fund is offering a novel and unique structure may affect the number of entities willing to act as Authorized Participants and AP Representatives. During times of market stress, Authorized Participants may be more likely to step away from this type of ETF than a traditional ETF.
Growth Stocks Risk - Investments in growth stocks may be more volatile than other stocks and the overall stock market. These stocks are typically priced higher than other stocks because of their growth potential, which may or may not be realized.
Focused Portfolio Risk - Investing in a limited number of companies carries more risk because changes in the value of a single company may have a more significant effect, either negative or positive on the fund’s value.
Style Risk - If at any time the market is not favoring the fund’s growth investment style, the fund’s gains may not be as big as, or its losses may be bigger than, those of other equity funds using different investment styles.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Depositary Receipts Risk - Investment in depositary receipts does not eliminate all the risks inherent in investing in securities of non-U.S. issuers. The market value of depositary receipts is dependent upon the market value of the underlying securities and fluctuations in the relative value of the currencies in which the depositary receipts and the underlying securities are quoted.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. Premiums and discounts may be larger for this fund than other ETFs because of its unique structure and lack of transparency. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
For at least the first three years after launch of the fund, the Board of Trustees (board) will promptly meet if, for 30 or more days in any quarter or 15 days in a row, the absolute difference between either the market closing price or the bid/ask price, on one hand, and NAV, on the other, exceeds 1.00% or the bid/ask spread exceeds 1.00%. In such a circumstance, the board will consider the continuing viability of the fund, whether shareholders are being harmed, and what, if any, action would be appropriate to among other things, narrow the premium/discount or spread, as applicable. The board will then decide whether to take any such action. Potential actions may include, but are not limited to, changing lead market makers, listing the fund on a different exchange, changing the size of Creation Units, changing the fund’s investment objective or strategy, and liquidating the fund.
Price Volatility Risk - The value of the fund’s shares may fluctuate significantly in the short term. The fund’s nontransparent structure may exacerbate this risk, particularly in volatile markets.
New Fund Risk - As a new fund, there can be no assurance that it will grow to or maintain an economically viable size.
Large-Cap Stock Risk - Larger companies are sometimes unable to attain the high growth rates of smaller companies, especially during extended periods of economic expansion.
High Portfolio Turnover Risk - The fund may engage in active and frequent trading of its portfolio securities. High portfolio turnover may result in increased transaction costs to the fund, including brokerage commissions, dealer mark-ups and other transaction costs on the sale of the securities and on reinvestment in other securities. 
Large Shareholder Risk - Certain shareholders, including other funds advised by the adviser, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the shares of the fund. In addition, a third party investor, the adviser or an affiliate of the adviser, an Authorized Participant, a market maker, or another entity may invest in the fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the fund or to facilitate the fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment or that the size of the fund would be maintained at such levels. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the Listing Exchange and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.
Principal Loss Risk - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit americancenturyetfs.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | American Century Focused Large Cap Value ETF
American Century® Focused Large Cap Value ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks long-term capital growth.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.42%
Other Expenses1
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.42%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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, that you earn 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:
1 year3 years
$43$135
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 rate 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. For the period from March 31, 2020, the fund’s inception, to the fiscal year ended August 31, 2020, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 73% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
Under normal market conditions, the portfolio managers will invest at least 80% of the fund’s assets in securities of large capitalization companies. For purposes of this 80% test, the fund defines large capitalization companies as those with capitalizations within the range of the Russell 1000® Index. Though market capitalization may change from time to time, as of September 30, 2020, the total market capitalization range of the Russell 1000® Index was approximately $676.8 million to $2.0 trillion.
In selecting stocks for the fund, the portfolio managers look for companies whose stock price may not reflect the company’s value, by looking for companies that are temporarily out of favor in, or whose value is not yet recognized by, the market. To identify these companies, the portfolio managers consider earnings, cash flows and/or assets that may not be reflected accurately in the companies’ stock prices. The managers attempt to purchase the stocks of these undervalued companies and hold each stock until the price has increased to, or is higher than, a level the managers believe more accurately reflects the fair value of the company. The fund normally invests in a relatively limited number of companies, generally 30-50. The fund will invest principally in U.S. exchange-listed common stocks and American Depositary Receipts (ADRs). The fund uses ADRs to obtain exposure to foreign securities. ADRs are issued by a U.S. financial institution (depositary) and evidence ownership in a security or pool of securities issued by a foreign issuer that have been deposited with the depositary. The fund may only invest in exchange-traded ADRs that are registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and trade on a U.S. exchange contemporaneously with the fund’s shares.
The fund is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF) that does not seek to replicate the performance of a specified index. The portfolio managers may sell stocks from the fund’s portfolio if they believe a stock no longer meets their valuation criteria, a stock’s risk parameters outweigh its return opportunity, more attractive alternatives are identified or specific events alter a stock’s prospects.
Principal Risks
Portfolio Transparency Risk -  Unlike traditional ETFs, the fund does not tell the public what assets it holds each day. Instead, the fund provides a verified intraday indicative value (VIIV), calculated and disseminated every second throughout the trading day. The VIIV is intended to provide investors with enough information to allow for an effective arbitrage mechanism that will keep the market price of the fund’s shares trading at or close to the underlying net asset value (NAV) per share of the fund. There is, however, a risk, which may increase during periods of market disruption or volatility, that market prices will vary significantly from
the underlying NAV of the fund. Similarly, because the fund’s shares trade on the basis of a published VIIV, they may trade at a wider bid/ask spread than shares of ETFs that publish their portfolios on a daily basis, especially during periods of market disruption or volatility, and therefore, may cost investors more to trade. Although the fund seeks to benefit from keeping its portfolio information secret, some market participants may attempt to use the VIIV to identify the fund’s trading strategy, which if successful, could result in such market participants engaging in certain predatory trading practices that may have the potential to harm the fund and its shareholders. The fund’s website will contain a historical comparison of each business day’s final VIIV to that business day’s NAV and the specific methodology for calculating the VIIV.
Trading Issues Risk - Trading in fund shares on the Listing Exchange may be halted in certain circumstances. If at any time the securities representing 10% or more of the fund’s portfolio become subject to a trading halt or otherwise do not have a readily available market quotations, the fund’s advisor will request the Listing Exchange to halt trading of the fund. There may be other instances that require a trading halt specific to the VIIV. If there is a discrepancy of sufficient magnitude in the fund’s VIIV calculation, the fund’s advisor will request the Listing Exchange to halt trading. This “circuit breaker” is designed to prevent the VIIV from reflecting outlier prices. For more information see “The Verified Indicative Intraday Value” section below.
Early Close/Trading Halt Risk - An exchange or market may close early or issue trading halts on portfolio securities. In times of market volatility, if trading is halted in some of the securities that the fund holds, there may be a disconnect between the market price of those securities and the market price of the fund. If at any time the securities representing 10% or more of the fund’s portfolio become subject to a trading halt or otherwise do not have readily available market quotations, the fund’s advisor will request the Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc. (Listing Exchange) to halt trading on the fund, meaning that investors would not be able to trade their shares. During any such trading halt, the VIIV would continue to be calculated and disseminated. Trading halts may have a greater impact on the fund than traditional ETFs because of its lack of transparency. Additionally, the fund’s advisor monitors the bid and ask quotations for the securities the fund holds, and, if it determines that such a security does not have readily available market quotations (such as during an extended trading halt), it will post that fact and the name and weighting of that security in the fund’s VIIV calculation on the fund’s web site. This information should permit market participants to calculate the effect of that security on the VIIV calculation, determine their own fair value of the disclosed portfolio security, and better judge the accuracy of that day’s VIIV for the fund. An extended trading halt in a portfolio security could exacerbate discrepancies between the VIIV and the fund’s NAV.
Authorized Participant/ Authorized Participant Representative Concentration Risk - The creation and redemption process for the fund occurs through a confidential brokerage account (Confidential Account) with an agent, called an AP Representative, on behalf of an Authorized Participant. Each day, the AP Representative will be given the names and quantities of the securities to be deposited, in the case of a creation, or redeemed, in the case of a redemption (Creation Basket), allowing the AP Representative to buy and sell positions in the portfolio securities to permit creations or redemptions on the Authorized Participant’s behalf, without disclosing the information to the Authorized Participant. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as Authorized Participants and AP Representatives, none of which are obligated to engage in creation or redemption transactions. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no other Authorized Participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to NAV and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally. The fact that the fund is offering a novel and unique structure may affect the number of entities willing to act as Authorized Participants and AP Representatives. During times of market stress, Authorized Participants may be more likely to step away from this type of ETF than a traditional ETF.
Style Risk - If the market does not consider the individual stocks purchased by the fund to be undervalued, the value of the fund’s shares may decline, even if stock prices generally are rising.
Focused Portfolio Risk - Investing in a limited number of companies carries more risk because changes in the value of a single company may have a more significant effect, either negative or positive on the fund’s value.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Depositary Receipts Risk - Investment in depositary receipts does not eliminate all the risks inherent in investing in securities of non-U.S. issuers. The market value of depositary receipts is dependent upon the market value of the underlying securities and fluctuations in the relative value of the currencies in which the depositary receipts and the underlying securities are quoted.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process
of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. Premiums and discounts may be larger for this fund than other ETFs because of its unique structure and lack of transparency. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
For at least the first three years after launch of the fund, the Board of Trustees (board) will promptly meet if, for 30 or more days in any quarter or 15 days in a row, the absolute difference between either the market closing price or the bid/ask price, on one hand, and NAV, on the other, exceeds 1.00% or the bid/ask spread exceeds 1.00%. In such a circumstance, the board will consider the continuing viability of the fund, whether shareholders are being harmed, and what, if any, action would be appropriate to among other things, narrow the premium/discount or spread, as applicable. The board will then decide whether to take any such action. Potential actions may include, but are not limited to, changing lead market makers, listing the fund on a different exchange, changing the size of Creation Units, changing the fund’s investment objective or strategy, and liquidating the fund.
Price Volatility Risk - The value of the fund’s shares may fluctuate significantly in the short term. The fund’s nontransparent structure may exacerbate this risk, particularly in volatile markets.
New Fund Risk - As a new fund, there can be no assurance that it will grow to or maintain an economically viable size.
Large-Cap Stock Risk - Larger companies are sometimes unable to attain the high growth rates of smaller companies, especially during extended periods of economic expansion. 
Large Shareholder Risk - Certain shareholders, including other funds advised by the adviser, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the shares of the fund. In addition, a third party investor, the adviser or an affiliate of the adviser, an Authorized Participant, a market maker, or another entity may invest in the fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the fund or to facilitate the fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment or that the size of the fund would be maintained at such levels. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the Listing Exchange and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.
Principal Loss Risk - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit americancenturyetfs.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | American Century Mid Cap Growth Impact ETF
American Century® Mid Cap Growth Impact ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks long-term capital growth.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.45%
Other Expenses1
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.45%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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, that you earn 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:
1 year3 years
$46$145
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 rate 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. For the period from July 13, 2020, the fund’s inception, to the fiscal year ended August 31, 2020, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 2% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
The portfolio managers look for stocks of medium capitalization companies they believe will increase in value over time, using proprietary fundamental research. The initial research process begins by analyzing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to identify companies that generate, or could generate, social and environmental impact alongside a financial return. SDGs are a collection of global goals set by the United Nations General Assembly—examples include: affordable and clean energy; decent work and economic growth; industry, innovation, and infrastructure; and responsible consumption and production. The portfolio managers make their investment decisions based primarily on their analysis of individual companies, rather than on broad economic forecasts. They generate an impact thesis—an assessment of current or projected SDG alignment in combination with a fundamental growth profile—for each security.
The portfolio managers may use commercial third party mapping tools, frameworks provided by sustainable investing platforms, or internal research, which may include engaging with a company’s leadership, to create each security’s SDG impact thesis. To decide whether a security aligns with an SDG, the portfolio managers place the most emphasis on the impact created by the product or service its issuing company produces. This helps the portfolio managers to avoid impact washing—investing in a company that is not truly advancing any of the SDGs, but is attempting to present itself as though it is (i.e. a company with a poor environmental track record touting that it will convert all of its delivery vehicles to clean burning natural gas, or a company with documented human rights abuses publicizing the diversity of its board of directors). While some securities in the fund’s portfolio may align with more than one SDG, to be eligible for selection by the portfolio managers, it is only necessary that a security aligns with one SDG. The fund does not prioritize any SDG over another, and so long as each security maps to at least one SDG, there is no minimum number of SDGs that must be represented in the portfolio. 
When evaluating a security’s potential for financial return, portfolio managers seek companies with attractive returns on invested capital that are demonstrating or expected to demonstrate long-term business improvement. Analytical indicators helping to identify or forecast signs of business improvement could include accelerating earnings or revenue growth rates, increasing cash flows, or other indications of the relative strength of a company’s business. This analysis supports the portfolio managers’ decisions to buy or hold the stocks of companies that meet their selection criteria and sell the stocks of companies whose characteristics no longer meet their criteria.
The fund will invest principally in exchange-traded common stocks. Under normal market conditions, the portfolio managers will invest at least 80% of the fund’s assets in securities of medium capitalization companies that the portfolio managers believe will create impact by aligning with at least one of the SDGs, as described above. The portfolio managers consider medium capitalization companies to include those whose market capitalizations at the time of purchase are within the total capitalization range of the Russell Mid-Cap Growth Index. Though market capitalizations will change from time to time, as of September 30, 2020, the fund considers companies with market capitalizations between $677 million–$46 billion to be medium capitalization companies. The fund may purchase securities of small and large capitalization companies as well. The fund is nondiversified and normally invests in a relatively limited number of companies, generally 20–40 securities.
The fund may engage in active and frequent trading of portfolio securities to achieve its principal investment strategies. This may cause higher transaction costs and may affect performance. It may also result in the realization and distribution of capital gains.
The fund is an actively managed, nontransparent exchange-traded fund (ETF) that does not seek to replicate the performance of a specified index. In lieu of publishing its portfolio contents (Actual Portfolio) daily, the fund publishes a proxy portfolio (Proxy Portfolio) each day and on its website. There is no minimum overlap required between the Actual Portfolio and the Proxy Portfolio.
Principal Risks
Proxy Portfolio Risk - The goal of the Proxy Portfolio is, during all market conditions, to track closely the daily performance of the Actual Portfolio and minimize intra-day misalignment between the performance of the Proxy Portfolio and the performance of the Actual Portfolio. The Proxy Portfolio is designed to reflect the economic exposures and the risk characteristics of the Actual Portfolio on any given trading day.
The Proxy Portfolio methodology is novel and not yet proven as an effective arbitrage mechanism. The effectiveness of the Proxy Portfolio as an arbitrage mechanism is contingent upon, among other things, the fund’s factor model analysis creating a proxy portfolio that performs in a manner substantially identical to the performance of the fund’s actual portfolio. While the Proxy Portfolio may include some of the fund’s holdings, it is not the fund’s Actual Portfolio. ETFs trading on the basis of a published Proxy Portfolio may exhibit wider premiums and discounts, bid/ask spreads, and tracking error than other ETFs using the same investment strategies that publish their portfolios on a daily basis, especially during periods of market disruption or volatility. Therefore, shares of the fund may cost investors more to trade than shares of a traditional ETF.
Each day the fund calculates the overlap between the holdings of the prior Business Day’s Proxy Portfolio compared to the Actual Portfolio (Proxy Overlap) and the difference, in percentage terms, between the Proxy Portfolio per share NAV and that of the Actual Portfolio (Tracking Error). If the Tracking Error becomes large, there is a risk that the performance of the Proxy Portfolio may deviate from the performance of the Actual Portfolio.
The fund’s Board of Trustees monitors its Tracking Error and bid/spread. If deviations become too large, the Board will consider the continuing viability of the fund, whether shareholders are being harmed, and what, if any, corrective measures would be appropriate. See the Statement of Additional Information for further discussion of the Board’s monitoring responsibilities.
Although the fund seeks to benefit from keeping its portfolio information secret, market participants may attempt to use the Proxy Portfolio to identify a fund’s trading strategy, which if successful, could result in such market participants engaging in certain predatory trading practices that may have the potential to harm the fund and its shareholders.
Premium/Discount Risk - Publication of the Proxy Portfolio is not the same level of transparency as the publication of the full portfolio by a fully transparent active ETF. Although the Proxy Portfolio is intended to provide investors with enough information to allow for an effective arbitrage mechanism that will keep the market price of the fund at or close to the underlying net asset value (NAV) per share of the fund, there is a risk (which may increase during periods of market disruption or volatility) that market prices will vary significantly from the underlying NAV of the fund. This means the price paid to buy shares on an exchange may not match the value of the fund’s portfolio. The same is true when shares are sold.
Trading Issues Risk - If securities representing 10% or more of the fund’s Actual Portfolio do not have readily available market quotations, the fund will promptly request that the Exchange halt trading in the fund’s shares. Trading halts may have a greater impact on this fund compared to other ETFs due to the fund’s nontransparent structure. If the trading of a security held in the fund’s Actual Portfolio is halted, or otherwise does not have readily available market quotations, and the Advisor believes that the lack of any such readily available market quotations may affect the reliability of the Proxy Portfolio as an arbitrage vehicle, or otherwise determines it is in the best interest of the fund, the Advisor promptly will disclose on the fund’s website the identity and weighting of such security for so long as such security’s trading is halted or otherwise does not have readily available market quotations and remains in the Actual Portfolio. 
Authorized Participant Concentration Risk - Only an authorized participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the fund. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as authorized participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no
other authorized participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to net asset value (NAV) and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally. The fact that the fund is offering a novel and unique structure may affect the number of entities willing to act as Authorized Participants. During times of market stress, Authorized Participants may be more likely to step away from this type of ETF than a traditional ETF.
U.N. SDG Criteria Risk - Because the portfolio managers consider the U.N. SDG in stock selection, the fund may exclude the securities of certain issuers for extra-financial reasons, and the fund may forgo some market opportunities available to funds that do not consider SDG. The fund’s investment process may also result in the portfolio investing in securities or industry sectors that perform differently or maintain a different risk profile than the market generally or compared to funds that do not use the SDG. SDG considerations may be linked to long term rather than short term returns. Furthermore, when analyzing securities for SDG impact, the portfolio managers rely on the veracity of management’s claims about its business operations and governance, as well as information published by commercial and industry sources. Stocks selected by the portfolio managers may perform differently or not have the impact expected due to the portfolio managers’ judgments given available information, the weight placed on each SDG, and changes from historical trends. There is no guarantee that the investment process will result in effective investment decisions for the fund.
Nondiversification Risk - The fund is classified as nondiversified. A nondiversified fund may invest a greater percentage of its assets in a smaller number of securities than a diversified fund. This gives the portfolio managers the flexibility to hold large positions in a smaller number of securities. If so, a price change in any one of those securities may have a greater impact on the fund’s share price than would be the case in a diversified fund and the fund may be more volatile than if it was diversified.
Sector Risk - If the fund is overweighted in a stock or sector, any negative development related to that stock or sector will have a greater impact on the fund. Companies in the same sector may be similarly affected by economic, regulatory, political or market events, or conditions, making the fund more vulnerable to unfavorable developments in that economic sector.
Growth Stocks Risk - Investments in growth stocks may be more volatile than other stocks and the overall stock market. These stocks are typically priced higher than other stocks because of their growth potential, which may or may not be realized.
Mid Cap Stocks Risk - The fund invests in medium-capitialization and smaller companies, which may be more volatile and subject to greater risk than larger companies. Smaller companies may have limited financial resources, product lines and markets, and their securities may trade less frequently and in more limited volumes than the securities of larger companies, which could lead to higher transaction costs.
Style Risk - If at any time the market is not favoring the fund’s growth investment style, the fund’s gains may not be as big as, or its losses may be bigger than, those of other equity funds using different investment styles.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
Price Volatility Risk - The value of the fund’s shares may fluctuate significantly in the short term.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Large Shareholder Risk - Certain shareholders, including other funds advised by the advisor, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the shares of the fund. In addition, a third party investor, the advisor or an affiliate of the advisor, an authorized participant, a market maker, or another entity may invest in the fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the fund or to facilitate the fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment, that the size of the fund would be maintained at such levels or that the fund would continue to meet applicable listing requirements. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the NYSE Arca, Inc. and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.
Principal Loss Risk - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit americancenturyetfs.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.
American Century ETF Trust | American Century Sustainable Equity ETF
American Century® Sustainable Equity ETF
Investment Objective
The fund seeks long-term capital growth.
Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy, hold, and sell shares of the fund. You may pay other fees, such as brokerage commissions and other fees to financial intermediaries, which are not reflected in the tables and examples below.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Management Fee0.39%
Other Expenses1
0.00%
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses0.39%
Example
The example below is intended to help you compare the costs of investing in the fund with the costs of investing in other 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, that you earn 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:
1 year3 years
$40$126
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 rate 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. For the period from July 13, 2020, the fund’s inception, to the fiscal year ended August 31, 2020, the fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 10% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal Investment Strategies
The fund will generally invest in large capitalization companies it believes show sustainable business improvement using a proprietary multi-factor model that combines fundamental measures of a stock’s value and growth potential with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics. The model assigns each security a financial metrics score and an ESG score that are combined to create an overall score.
To measure value, the portfolio managers may use ratios of stock price-to-earnings and stock price-to-cash flow. To measure growth, the managers may use the rate of growth of a company’s earnings and cash flow and changes in its earnings estimates. The model also considers price momentum. The team arrives at an ESG score by evaluating multiple metrics of each ESG characteristic—environmental, social, and governance. The portfolio managers utilize internal data and research, as well as third party commercial data sources and scoring systems, to evaluate each security’s ESG characteristics. For example, portfolio managers will consider, among others, a company’s carbon emission profile (environmental), a company’s employee turnover rates and digital privacy (social), and a company’s corporate leadership, including board chair independence and the independence of audit and compensation committees (governance). If information on a specific metric is unavailable, the security may still be selected for the portfolio if the portfolio managers believe they can evaluate the security qualitatively, or if the financial metrics and remaining ESG scores merit investment.
Final scores for each security are evaluated on a sector-specific basis, and the fund seeks to hold securities with the strongest scores in their respective sectors. Using this process, the portfolio managers attempt to build a portfolio of stocks that has sustainable competitive advantages, provides better returns without taking on significant additional risk, and maintains a stronger ESG profile than the S&P 500® Index.
Under normal market conditions, the fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in sustainable equity securities. For this purpose, the advisor defines sustainable securities as those to which the advisor’s proprietary model assigns an ESG score that is in the top three quartiles of the ESG scores the model assigns to all of the securities in the fund’s benchmark, the S&P 500® Index. The fund will invest principally in exchange-traded common stocks. The fund defines large capitalization companies as companies with capitalizations in the capitalization range of the S&P 500® Index.
When determining whether to sell a security, the portfolio managers consider among other things, a security’s price, whether a security’s risk parameters outweigh its return opportunities, general market conditions, and whether the security meets their ESG criteria.
The fund is an actively managed, nontransparent exchange-traded fund (ETF) that does not seek to replicate the performance of a specified index. In lieu of publishing its portfolio contents (Actual Portfolio) daily, the fund publishes a proxy portfolio (Proxy Portfolio) each day and on its website. There is no minimum overlap required between the Actual Portfolio and the Proxy Portfolio.
Principal Risks
Proxy Portfolio Risk - The goal of the Proxy Portfolio is, during all market conditions, to track closely the daily performance of the Actual Portfolio and minimize intra-day misalignment between the performance of the Proxy Portfolio and the performance of the Actual Portfolio. The Proxy Portfolio is designed to reflect the economic exposures and the risk characteristics of the Actual Portfolio on any given trading day.
The Proxy Portfolio methodology is novel and not yet proven as an effective arbitrage mechanism. The effectiveness of the Proxy Portfolio as an arbitrage mechanism is contingent upon, among other things, the fund’s factor model analysis creating a proxy portfolio that performs in a manner substantially identical to the performance of the fund’s actual portfolio. While the Proxy Portfolio may include some of the fund’s holdings, it is not the fund’s Actual Portfolio. ETFs trading on the basis of a published Proxy Portfolio may exhibit wider premiums and discounts, bid/ask spreads, and tracking error than other ETFs using the same investment strategies that publish their portfolios on a daily basis, especially during periods of market disruption or volatility. Therefore, shares of the fund may cost investors more to trade than shares of a traditional ETF.
Each day the fund calculates the overlap between the holdings of the prior Business Day’s Proxy Portfolio compared to the Actual Portfolio (Proxy Overlap) and the difference, in percentage terms, between the Proxy Portfolio per share NAV and that of the Actual Portfolio (Tracking Error). If the Tracking Error becomes large, there is a risk that the performance of the Proxy Portfolio may deviate from the performance of the Actual Portfolio.
The fund’s Board of Trustees monitors its Tracking Error and bid/spread. If deviations become too large, the Board will consider the continuing viability of the fund, whether shareholders are being harmed, and what, if any, corrective measures would be appropriate. See the Statement of Additional Information for further discussion of the Board’s monitoring responsibilities.
Although the fund seeks to benefit from keeping its portfolio information secret, market participants may attempt to use the Proxy Portfolio to identify a fund’s trading strategy, which if successful, could result in such market participants engaging in certain predatory trading practices that may have the potential to harm the fund and its shareholders.
Premium/Discount Risk - Publication of the Proxy Portfolio is not the same level of transparency as the publication of the full portfolio by a fully transparent active ETF. Although the Proxy Portfolio is intended to provide investors with enough information to allow for an effective arbitrage mechanism that will keep the market price of the fund at or close to the underlying net asset value (NAV) per share of the fund, there is a risk (which may increase during periods of market disruption or volatility) that market prices will vary significantly from the underlying NAV of the fund. This means the price paid to buy shares on an exchange may not match the value of the fund’s portfolio. The same is true when shares are sold.
Trading Issues Risk - If securities representing 10% or more of the fund’s Actual Portfolio do not have readily available market quotations, the fund will promptly request that the Exchange halt trading in the fund’s shares. Trading halts may have a greater impact on this fund compared to other ETFs due to the fund’s nontransparent structure. If the trading of a security held in the fund’s Actual Portfolio is halted, or otherwise does not have readily available market quotations, and the Advisor believes that the lack of any such readily available market quotations may affect the reliability of the Proxy Portfolio as an arbitrage vehicle, or otherwise determines it is in the best interest of the fund, the Advisor promptly will disclose on the fund’s website the identity and weighting of such security for so long as such security’s trading is halted or otherwise does not have readily available market quotations and remains in the Actual Portfolio. 
Authorized Participant Concentration Risk - Only an authorized participant may engage in creation or redemption transactions directly with the fund. The fund may have a limited number of institutions that act as authorized participants. To the extent that these institutions exit the business or are unable to proceed with creation and/or redemption orders with respect to the fund and no other authorized participant is able to step forward to process creation and/or redemption orders, fund shares may trade at a discount to net asset value (NAV) and possibly face trading halts and/or delisting. This risk may be more pronounced in volatile markets, potentially where there are significant redemptions in ETFs generally. The fact that the fund is offering a novel and unique structure may affect the number of entities willing to act as Authorized Participants. During times of market stress, Authorized Participants may be more likely to step away from this type of ETF than a traditional ETF.
ESG Risk - Because the fund considers ESG metrics in addition to fundamental financial metrics when selecting securities, its portfolio may perform differently than funds that do not use ESG metrics. ESG considerations may prioritize long term rather than
short term returns. Furthermore, when analyzing ESG criteria for securities, the portfolio management team relies on the information and scoring models published by third party sources, there is a risk that this information might be incorrect or only take into account one of many ESG related components of portfolio companies. Moreover, scores and ratings across third party providers may be inconsistent or incomparable.
Style Risk - If at any time the market is not favoring the fund’s investment process, the fund’s gains may not be as big as, or its losses may be bigger than, those of other equity funds using different investment styles.
Market Trading Risk - The fund faces numerous market trading risks, including the potential lack of an active market for fund shares, losses from trading in secondary markets, periods of high volatility and disruption in the creation and/or redemption process of the fund. Any of these factors, among others, may lead to the fund’s shares trading at a premium or discount to NAV. Thus, you may pay more (or less) than NAV when you buy shares of the fund in the secondary market, and you may receive less (or more) than NAV when you sell those shares in the secondary market. The portfolio managers cannot predict whether shares will trade above (premium), below (discount) or at NAV.
Market Risk - The value of the fund’s shares will go up and down based on the performance of the companies whose securities it owns and other factors generally affecting the securities market. Market risks, including political, regulatory, economic and social developments, can affect the value of the fund’s investments. Natural disasters, public health emergencies, terrorism and other unforeseeable events may lead to increased market volatility and may have adverse long-term effects on world economies and markets generally.
Public Health Emergency Risk - A pandemic, caused by the infectious respiratory illness COVID-19, is causing market disruption and other economic impacts. Markets have experienced volatility, reduced liquidity, and increased trading costs. These events may continue to impact the fund and its underlying investments and could cause increased premiums or discounts to the fund’s NAV.
Large Shareholder Risk - Certain shareholders, including other funds advised by the advisor, may from time to time own a substantial amount of the shares of the fund. In addition, a third party investor, the advisor or an affiliate of the advisor, an authorized participant, a market maker, or another entity may invest in the fund and hold its investment for a limited period of time solely to facilitate commencement of the fund or to facilitate the fund’s achieving a specified size or scale. There can be no assurance that any large shareholder would not redeem its investment, that the size of the fund would be maintained at such levels or that the fund would continue to meet applicable listing requirements. Redemptions by large shareholders could have a significant negative impact on the fund. In addition, transactions by large shareholders may account for a large percentage of the trading volume on the NYSE Arca, Inc. and may, therefore, have a material upward or downward effect on the market price of the shares.
Principal Loss Risk - At any given time your shares may be worth less than the price you paid for them. In other words, it is possible to lose money by investing in the fund.
An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit, and it is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency.
Fund Performance
The fund’s performance history is not available as of the date of this prospectus. When the fund has investment results for a full calendar year, this section will feature charts that show annual total returns, highest and lowest quarterly returns and average annual total returns for the fund. This information indicates the volatility of the fund’s historical returns from year to year. For current performance information, please visit americancenturyetfs.com.
Performance information is designed to help you see how fund returns can vary. Keep in mind that past performance (before and after taxes) does not predict how the fund will perform in the future.