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Dreyfus Total Return Advantage Fund | Dreyfus Total Return Advantage Fund
Fund Summary
Investment Objective

The fund seeks to maximize total return through capital appreciation and income.

Fees and Expenses

This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy and hold shares of the fund. You may qualify for sales charge discounts if you and your family invest, or agree to invest in the future, at least $50,000 in certain funds in the Dreyfus Family of Funds. More information about these and other discounts is available from your financial professional and in the Shareholder Guide section on page 10 of the Prospectus and in the How to Buy Shares section and the Additional Information About How to Buy Shares section on page II-1 and page III-1, respectively, of the fund's Statement of Additional Information.

Shareholder Fees (fees paid directly from your investment)
Shareholder Fees Dreyfus Total Return Advantage Fund
Class A
Class C
Class I
Maximum sales charge (load) imposed on purchases (as a percentage of offering price) 4.50% none none
Maximum deferred sales charge (load) (as a percentage of lower of purchase or sale price) none [1] 1.00% none
[1] Class A shares bought without an initial sales charge as part of an investment of $1 million or more may be charged a deferred sales charge of 1.00% if redeemed within one year.
Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
Annual Fund Operating Expenses Dreyfus Total Return Advantage Fund
Class A
Class C
Class I
Management fees 0.45% 0.45% 0.45%
Distribution (Rule 12b-1) fees none 0.75% none
Other expenses (including shareholder services fees) 0.60% 0.62% 0.31%
Total annual fund operating expenses 1.05% 1.82% 0.76%
Fee waiver and/or expense reimbursement [1] (0.25%) (0.27%) (0.21%)
Total annual fund operating expenses (after fee waiver and/or expense reimbursement) 0.80% 1.55% 0.55%
[1] The Dreyfus Corporation has contractually agreed, until March 1, 2014, to waive receipt of its fees and/or assume the expenses of the fund so that the expenses of none of the classes (excluding Rule 12b-1 fees, shareholder services fees, taxes, interest, brokerage commissions, commitment fees on borrowings and extraordinary expenses) exceed .55%. On or after March 1, 2014, The Dreyfus Corporation may terminate this expense waiver at any time.
Example

The Example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the fund with the cost of investing in other mutual funds. The Example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all of your shares at the end of those periods. The Example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the fund's operating expenses remain the same. The one-year example and the first year of the three-, five- and ten-years examples are based on net operating expenses, which reflect the expense waiver/reimbursement by The Dreyfus Corporation. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

Expense Example Dreyfus Total Return Advantage Fund (USD $)
1 Year
3 Years
5 Years
10 Years
Class A
528 745 980 1,653
Class C
258 546 960 2,115
Class I
56 222 402 923
You would pay the following expenses if you did not redeem your shares:
Expense Example No Redemption Dreyfus Total Return Advantage Fund (USD $)
1 Year
3 Years
5 Years
10 Years
Class A
528 745 980 1,653
Class C
158 546 960 2,115
Class I
56 222 402 923
Portfolio Turnover

The fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or "turns over" its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the example, affect the fund's performance. During the most recent fiscal year, the fund's portfolio turnover rate was 292.31% of the average value of its portfolio.

Principal Investment Strategy

To pursue its goal, the fund normally invests primarily in fixed-income securities and instruments that provide investment exposure to fixed-income markets. The fund also invests in instruments that provide investment exposure to currency markets. The fund's portfolio managers employ an active core bond strategy to focus the fund's investments on the U.S. fixed-income market. The portfolio managers next employ separate global bond and currency strategies to provide the fund with exposure to foreign and U.S. fixed-income markets and currency markets, respectively. The fund's portfolio managers seek to deliver value added excess returns ("alpha") by applying a systematic, quantitative investment approach that incorporates three separate strategies - active core bond strategy, global bond strategy and active currency strategy - designed to identify and exploit relative misvaluations across fixed-income and currency markets, respectively.


The fund may use to a significant degree derivative instruments as a substitute for investing directly in fixed-income securities and currencies, as part of a hedging strategy, as part of an alpha generating strategy, to manage the effective maturity or duration of the fund's portfolio or for other purposes related to the management of the fund.

Principal Risks

An investment in the fund is not a bank deposit. It is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency. It is not a complete investment program. The fund's share price fluctuates, sometimes dramatically, which means you could lose money.


· Interest rate risk. Prices of bonds tend to move inversely with changes in interest rates. Typically, a rise in rates will adversely affect bond prices and, accordingly, the fund's share price. The longer the effective maturity and duration of the fund's fixed-income portfolio, the more the fund's share price is likely to react to interest rates.


· Credit risk. Failure of an issuer to make timely interest or principal payments, or a decline or perception of a decline in the credit quality of a bond, can cause a bond's price to fall, potentially lowering the fund's share price. The lower a bond's credit rating, the greater the chance – in the rating agency's opinion – that the bond issuer will default or fail to meet its payment obligations.


· Market risk. The market value of a security may decline due to general market conditions that are not specifically related to a particular company, such as real or perceived adverse economic conditions, changes in the outlook for corporate earnings, changes in interest or currency rates or adverse investor sentiment generally. A security's market value also may decline because of factors that affect a particular industry or industries, such as labor shortages or increased production costs and competitive conditions within an industry, or factors that affect a particular company, such as management performance, financial leverage, and reduced demand for the company's products or services.


· Market sector risk. The fund may significantly overweight or underweight certain companies, industries or market sectors, which may cause the fund's performance to be more or less sensitive to developments affecting those companies, industries or sectors.


· Derivatives risk. A small investment in derivatives could have a potentially large impact on the fund's performance. The use of derivatives involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in the underlying assets. Derivatives can be highly volatile, illiquid and difficult to value.


· Foreign investment risk. To the extent the fund invests in foreign securities, the fund's performance will be influenced by political, social and economic factors affecting investments in foreign companies. Special risks associated with investments in foreign issuers include exposure to currency fluctuations, less liquidity, less developed or less efficient trading markets, lack of comprehensive company information, political and economic instability and differing auditing and legal standards. Investments denominated in foreign currencies are subject to the risk that such currencies will decline in value relative to the U.S. dollar and affect the value of these investments held by the fund.


· Foreign currency risk. Investments in foreign currencies are subject to the risk that those currencies will decline in value relative to the U.S. dollar or, in the case of hedged positions, that the U.S. dollar will decline relative to the currency being hedged. Currency exchange rates may fluctuate significantly over short periods of time. Foreign currencies are also subject to risks caused by inflation, interest rates, budget deficits and low savings rates, political factors and government intervention and controls.


· Liquidity risk. When there is little or no active trading market for a security, the fund may not be able to sell the security in a timely manner at its perceived value, which could cause the fund's share price to fall. Investments in foreign securities tend to have greater exposure to liquidity risk than domestic securities.


· Portfolio turnover risk. The fund may engage in short-term trading, which could produce higher transaction costs and taxable distributions, and lower the fund's after-tax performance.


· Non-diversification risk. The fund is non-diversified, which means that the fund may invest a relatively high percentage of its assets in a limited number of issuers. Therefore, the fund's performance may be more vulnerable to changes in the market value of a single issuer or group of issuers and more susceptible to risks associated with a single economic, political or regulatory occurrence than a diversified fund.

Performance

The following bar chart and table provide some indication of the risks of investing in the fund. The bar chart shows changes in the performance of the fund's Class A shares from year to year. The table compares the average annual total returns of the fund's shares to those of a broad measure of market performance. The fund's past performance (before and after taxes) is not necessarily an indication of how the fund will perform in the future. Sales charges, if any, are not reflected in the bar chart, and if those charges were included, returns would have been less than those shown. More recent performance information may be available at www.dreyfus.com.

Year-by-Year Total Returns as of 12/31 each year (%) -- Class A
Bar Chart

Best Quarter
Q3, 2009: 4.27%

Worst Quarter
Q2, 2007: -1.29%

Average Annual Total Returns (as of 12/31/12)

After-tax performance is shown only for Class A shares. After-tax performance of the fund's other share classes will vary. After-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates, and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on the investor's tax situation and may differ from those shown, and the after-tax returns shown are not relevant to investors who hold their shares through tax-deferred arrangements such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts.

Average Annual Returns Dreyfus Total Return Advantage Fund
Average Annual Returns, 1 Year
Average Annual Returns, 5 Years
Average Annual Returns, Since Inception
Average Annual Returns, Inception Date
Class A
(1.42%) 5.01% 5.06% Mar. 15, 2006
Class C
1.45% 5.20% 4.99% Mar. 15, 2006
Class I
3.46% 6.24% 6.04% Mar. 15, 2006
After Taxes on Distributions Class A
(2.61%) 3.56% 3.56%  
After Taxes on Distributions and Sale of Fund Shares Class A
(0.93%) 3.48% 3.48%  
Barclays Capital U.S. Aggregate Bond Index reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes
4.22% 5.95% 5.95% [1] Feb. 28, 2006
[1] For comparative purposes, the value of the index on 2/28/06 is used as the beginning value on 3/15/06.