The mean (average) of Annual Total Returns of an investment over a period of years. The Annual Total Return of a fund is expressed as a percentage and is computed by dividing the increase or decrease in the fund's net asset value over a period of one year, including dividends or interest payments and capital gains or losses, but excluding sales charges or loads, redemption fees and taxes, by the fund's net asset value at the beginning of the year. Total return figures will be lowered by any account management, administrative, or Rule 12b-1 fees and other costs automatically deducted from fund assets, and assets may also be affected by annual compounding. Average annual total return may include sales loads ("standardized") or may not ("non-standardized") and may be calculated on a before-tax basis or an after-tax basis.

Taxes are one of the costs associated with a mutual fund investment and may have a significant impact on the return an investor realises from a fund. Disclosure of standardised mutual fund after-tax returns is intended to help investors to compare the impact of taxes on the performance of different funds. To facilitate comparison, all 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. It is important to remember, therefore, that 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 fund shares through tax-deferred arrangements such as 401(k) plans or individual retirement accounts. A fund's past performance, before and after taxes, is not necessarily an indication of how the fund will perform in the future.