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Dreyfus Global Absolute Return Fund
Fund Summary
Investment Objective

The fund seeks total return.

Fees and Expenses

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

Shareholder Fees (fees paid directly from your investment)
Shareholder Fees Dreyfus Global Absolute Return Fund
Class A
Class C
Class I
Class Y
Maximum sales charge (load) imposed on purchases (as a percentage of offering price) 5.75% none none none
Maximum deferred sales charge (load) (as a percentage of lower of purchase or sale price) none [1] 1.00% none 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 Global Absolute Return Fund
Class A
Class C
Class I
Class Y
Management fees 1.10% 1.10% 1.10% 1.10%
Distribution (12b-1) fees none 0.75% none none
Other expenses (including shareholder services fees) [1] 0.98% 1.06% 0.67% 0.63%
Total annual fund operating expenses 2.08% 2.91% 1.77% 1.73%
Fee waiver and/or expense reimbursement [2] (0.58%) (0.66%) (0.52%) (0.48%)
Total annual fund operating expenses (after fee waiver and/or expense reimbursement) 1.50% 2.25% 1.25% 1.25%
[1] Other expenses for Class Y are based on estimated amounts for the current fiscal year.
[2] The Dreyfus Corporation has contractually agreed, until July 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 1.25%. On or after July 1, 2014, The Dreyfus Corporation may terminate this expense limitation 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 Global Absolute Return Fund (USD $)
1 Year
3 Years
5 Years
10 Years
Class A
719 1,137 1,579 2,803
Class C
328 839 1,475 3,186
Class I
127 507 911 2,041
Class Y
127 498 894 2,001
You would pay the following expenses if you did not redeem your shares:
Expense Example No Redemption Dreyfus Global Absolute Return Fund (USD $)
1 Year
3 Years
5 Years
10 Years
Class A
719 1,137 1,579 2,803
Class C
228 839 1,475 3,186
Class I
127 507 911 2,041
Class Y
127 498 894 2,001
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 0% of the average value of its portfolio.

Principal Investment Strategy

To pursue its goal, the fund uses a variety of investment strategies, sometimes referred to as absolute return strategies, to produce returns with low correlation with, and less volatility than, major markets over a complete market cycle, typically a period of several years. The fund will seek to achieve investment exposure to global equity, bond and currency markets primarily through long and short positions in futures, options and forward contracts, which should enable the fund's portfolio managers to implement investment decisions quickly and cost-effectively. The fund also will invest in fixed-income securities, such as bonds, notes (including structured notes), and money market instruments, to provide exposure to bond markets and for liquidity and income. The fund's portfolio managers seek to deliver value added excess returns ("alpha") by applying a systematic, quantitative investment approach designed to identify and exploit relative misvaluations across and within global capital markets.

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.


· Allocation risk. The ability of the fund to achieve its investment goal depends, in part, on the ability of the fund's portfolio manager to allocate effectively the fund's assets among equities, bonds and currencies. There can be no assurance that the actual allocations will be effective in achieving the fund's investment goal.


· Correlation risk. Although the prices of equity securities and fixed-income securities, as well as other asset classes, often rise and fall at different times so that a fall in the price of one may be offset by a rise in the price of the other, in down markets the prices of these securities and asset classes can also fall in tandem. Because the fund allocates its investments among different asset classes, the fund is subject to correlation risk.


· Risks of stock investing. Stocks generally fluctuate more in value than bonds and may decline significantly over short time periods. There is the chance that stock prices overall will decline because stock markets tend to move in cycles, with periods of rising prices and falling prices. The market value of a stock may decline due to general weakness in the stock market or because of factors that affect the company or its particular industry.


· 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.


· Interest rate risk. Prices of bonds tend to move inversely with changes in interest rates. Typically, a rise in rates will adversely affect bond prices and, accordingly, the fund's share price. The longer the effective maturity and duration of the fund's fixed-income portfolio, the more the fund's share price is likely to react to interest rates. For example, the market price of a fixed-income security with a duration of three years would be expected to decline 3% if interest rates rose 1%. Conversely, the market price of the same security would be expected to increase 3% if interest rates fell 1%.


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


· 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.


· Derivatives risk. A small investment in derivatives could have a potentially large impact on the fund's performance. The use of derivatives involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in the underlying assets. Derivatives can be highly volatile, illiquid and difficult to value. Certain types of derivatives, including swaps, forward contracts, over-the-counter options and certain hybrid instruments, involve greater risks than the underlying obligations because, in addition to general market risks, they are subject to illiquidity risk, counterparty risk, credit risk and pricing risk.


· Short sale risk. The fund may make short sales, which involves selling a security it does not own in anticipation that the security's price will decline. Short sales expose the fund to the risk that it will be required to buy the security sold short (also known as "covering" the short position) at a time when the security has appreciated in value, thus resulting in a loss to the fund.


· Liquidity risk. When there is little or no active trading market for specific types of securities, it can become more difficult to sell the securities at or near their perceived value. In such a market, the value of such securities and the fund's share price may fall dramatically. Investments in foreign securities tend to have greater exposure to liquidity risk than domestic securities.


· 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.


Since the fund's Class Y shares are new, past performance information is not available for Class Y shares as of the date of this prospectus. Class Y shares would have had substantially similar annual returns as Class A, C and I shares because each share class is invested in the same portfolio of securities and the annual returns would have differed only to the extent that the classes do not have the same expenses.

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

Best Quarter
Q3, 2009: 9.12%


Worst Quarter
Q3, 2008: -7.55%


The year-to-date total return of the fund's Class A shares as of March 31, 2013 was 0.68%.

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 Global Absolute Return Fund
Average Annual Returns, 1 Year
Average Annual Returns, 5 Years
Average Annual Returns, Since Inception
Average Annual Returns, Inception Date
Class A
(7.95%) (0.37%) (0.83%) Dec. 18, 2007
Class C
(3.95%) 0.05% (0.41%) Dec. 18, 2007
Class I
(2.05%) 1.10% 0.62% Dec. 18, 2007
After Taxes on Distributions Class A
(7.95%) (0.67%) (1.13%)  
After Taxes on Distributions and Sale of Fund Shares Class A
(5.17%) (0.40%) (0.79%)  
Citibank 30-Day Treasury Bill Index reflects no deduction for fees, expenses or taxes
0.05% 0.33% 0.33% [1] Dec. 31, 2007
[1] For comparative purposes, the value of the index on 12/31/07 is used as the beginning value on 12/18/07.