ACQUIRED FUND FEES AND EXPENSES AFFE

A line item in a fund-of-funds' prospectus that shows the operating expenses of the underlying funds. This became a requirement as of January 2007 and this information is found beneath the "Fees and Expenses" heading.

A check of Morningstar and Standard & Poor's fund reports indicates that investment research firms are reporting a fund-of-funds' expense ratios with AFFE included. Previously, in many instances, a fund-of-funds' expense ratio was reported as zero, which meant that while there weren't any expenses incurred by the fund-of-funds per se, there would be operating expenses incurred by the various underlying funds in the portfolio. The new AFFE disclosure now fills in that blank.