Chicago, IL, March 01, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Innovator Capital Management, LLC (Innovator) today announced the new upside caps and return profiles for the March Series of the S&P 500 Buffer ETFs™ – Innovator S&P 500 Buffer ETF™ - March (BMAR), Innovator S&P 500 Power Buffer ETF™ – March (PMAR) and Innovator S&P 500 Ultra Buffer ETF™ – March (UMAR) – which completed their first outcome period and reset at the end of the month. It was an extraordinarily volatile 12 months that started with the premier large-cap benchmark of the U.S. stock market crashing from record levels amidst the fastest ever 30% drop before the most rapid rebound in the history of the index, hitting fresh highs within six months of reaching its corona crash bear market low. The March Series of the Innovator S&P 500 Buffer ETFs provided a lower drawdown and muted volatility while offering upside participation to their respective caps during an extraordinary year.
Return profiles for the Innovator S&P 500 Buffer ETFs™ – March Series, as of 3/01/2021
| Ticker | Name | Buffer Level | Caps* | Outcome Period |
| BMAR | Innovator S&P 500 Buffer ETF™ - March | 9.00% | 17.42% | 12 months 3/01/21 – 2/28/22 |
| PMAR | Innovator S&P 500 Power Buffer ETF™ - March | 15.00% | 11.30% | 12 months 3/01/21 – 2/28/22 |
| UMAR | Innovator S&P 500 Ultra Buffer ETF™ - March | 30.00% (-5% to -35%) | 7.80% | 12 months 3/01/21 – 2/28/22 |
* The Caps above are shown gross of each fund’s management fee (.79). “Cap” refers to the maximum potential return, before fees and expenses and any shareholder transaction fees and any extraordinary expenses, if held over the full Outcome Period. “Buffer” refers to the amount of downside protection the fund seeks to provide, before fees and expenses, over the full Outcome Period. Outcome Period is the intended length of time over which the defined outcomes are sought. Upon fund launch, the Caps can be found on a daily basis via www.innovatoretfs.com.
Bruce Bond, CEO of Innovator ETFs, commented, “Though new equity market record highs were breached in February, concerning bubble-ish activity continued and volatility kicked up as some air came out of popular Tech, high Growth and speculative market segments due to rates continuing their rapid ascent as investors bet on reflation and inflation. Some of the air came out of stocks and stock-bond correlations were challenged. Amidst the uncertainty, jitters in a stock market that is richly valued by historical measures and the heavy losses bonds have suffered recently, Buffer ETFs can provide investors a measure of calm in having a known amount of downside absorption over the next year, and an ability to diversify away from typical bond allocations that are decreasing in value with yields rising. For investors who can’t afford – or simply don’t want – to be naked to the volatility and potential for drawdowns in the stock market, the March series of the S&P 500 Buffer ETFs™ can help address the risks in the market today while allowing participation in the upside, to a cap. Advisors are using Defined Outcome ETFs™ as behavioral tools to battle loss aversion and better match equity exposure to clients’ risk tolerance levels in 2021.”
The Equity Buffer ETFs™ are part of Innovator’s category-creating Defined Outcome ETF™ family – the world’s first ETFs that seek to provide investors with known ranges of future investment outcomes prior to investing. The Buffer ETFs™ allow investors to take advantage of market growth, to a cap, while maintaining defined levels of downside exposure with built-in buffers against losses of -9% (“Buffer”), -15% (“Power Buffer”) or -30% (“Ultra Buffer”) in a tax-efficient vehicle over a one year Outcome Period. Innovator currently has 57 Defined Outcome Buffer ETFs™ in the market, as well as the Innovator Laddered Fund of S&P 500 Power Buffer ETFs (BUFF), with total assets under management (AUM) of nearly $4 billion1. In addition to being named “ETF Issuer of the Year – 2019” in the seventh annual ETF.com Awards*, acknowledging the rapid advisor adoption and the positive potential impact on investor behavior of the Defined Outcome ETFs™, Innovator defended their 2019 win for the “Asset Managers: ETFs” award at the 2020 WealthManagement.com Industry Awards and was “Highly Commended” for “ETF Suite of the Year” at the Mutual Fund Industry and ETF Awards 2020 by Fund Intelligence** in July.
The ETFs reset annually and can be held indefinitely. For additional information on the March Series of Innovator S&P 500 Buffer ETFs™ (BMAR, PMAR, UMAR), visit the Innovator Defined Outcome ETF Pricing Tool.
Innovator Defined Outcome ETFs - Benefits to Advisors
- Pioneer and creator of Defined Outcome ETFs™ with 57 ETFs and nearly $4 billion AUM across family2
- Tax-efficient exposure to five broad equity benchmarks (S&P 500, NASDAQ 100, Russell 2000, MSCI EAFE, MSCI EM), the 20+ Year U.S. Treasury Market and now including the Stacker ETFs, the world’s first ETFs to offer a “stacked” exposure to two or three benchmark equity index ETFs on the upside, to a cap, with downside exposure to the S&P 500 only
- Monthly issuance on the S&P 500 with three buffer levels (9,15, or 30%)
Innovator's Defined Outcome ETFs™ are the subject of a patent application filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
In 2021, starting with the January series, Innovator will be transitioning reference assets of the underlying options within its Defined Outcome Equity Buffer ETFs™ to achieve the stated outcomes with ETF-based, or fund-based, options rather than index-based options. Innovator’s Equity Buffer ETFs™ have traditionally used index-based options while the Defined Outcome Bond ETFs and Stacker ETFs™ have been constructed using fund-based options. This change is intended to streamline market making and increase the operational efficiencies of the tax-efficient Buffer ETFs™ and will not materially impact shareholders. The Buffer ETFs™ will continue to draw from the same deeply liquid options markets pools that underpin the strategies, the level of the upside caps achieved should be unaffected and no tax event will be triggered given the options can be transferred in-kind. “These operational changes are intended to harness the power and efficiencies of the ETF wrapper even further for the benefit of our Defined Outcome Buffer ETF™ investors,” stated Bruce Bond, CEO of Innovator ETFs.
The Funds have characteristics unlike many other traditional investment products and may not be suitable for all investors. For more information regarding whether an investment in the Fund is right for you, please see “Investor Suitability” in the prospectus.
About Innovator Defined Outcome ETFs™
Defined Outcome ETFs™ are the world’s first ETFs that seek to provide investors with known ranges of future investment outcomes prior to investing. These outcome ranges include multiple and single upside exposure, to a cap, with defined levels of downside risk with buffers and floors over a set amount of time. The Innovator Defined Outcome ETFs™ cover a large spectrum of domestic and international equities and bonds. Innovator’s category-creating Defined Outcome ETF™ family includes Buffer ETFs™, Stacker ETFs™ and Floor ETFs™.
The Buffer ETFs™ seek to provide the upside performance of broadly recognized benchmarks (e.g., S&P 500, NASDAQ-100, Russell 2000, MSCI EAFE, and MSCI Emerging Markets, as well as the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT)) to a cap, with built-in buffers, over an outcome period of one year. The ETFs reset annually and can be held indefinitely.
Each Buffer ETF™ in Innovator’s Defined Outcome ETF™ suite seeks to provide a defined exposure to a broad market benchmark where the downside buffer level, upside growth potential to a cap, and Outcome Period are all known, prior to investing. In 2019, Innovator began expanding its suite of S&P 500 Buffer ETFs™ into a monthly series to provide investors more opportunities to purchase shares as close to the beginning of their respective Outcome Periods as possible.
Investors can purchase shares of a previously listed Defined Outcome ETF™ throughout the entire Outcome Period, obtaining a current set of defined outcome parameters, which are disclosed daily through a web tool available at: http://innovatoretfs.com/define.
Innovator is focused on delivering defined outcome-based solutions inside the benefit-rich ETF wrapper, retaining many of the features that have contributed to the success of structured products3 (e.g., downside buffer levels, upside participation, defined outcome parameters), but with the added benefits of transparency, liquidity, the elimination of credit risk and lower costs afforded by the ETF structure.
About Innovator Capital Management, LLC
Awarded ETF.com's "ETF Issuer of the Year - 2019"*, Innovator Capital Management LLC (Innovator) is an SEC-registered investment advisor (RIA) based in Wheaton, IL. Formed in 2014, the firm is currently headed by ETF visionaries Bruce Bond and John Southard, founders of one of the largest ETF providers in the world. Bond and Southard reentered the asset management industry to bring to market first-of-their-kind investment opportunities, including the Defined Outcome ETFs™, products that they felt would change the investing landscape and bring more certainty to the financial planning process. Innovator’s category-creating Defined Outcome ETF™ family includes Buffer ETFs™, Stacker ETFs™ and Floor ETFs. Buffer ETFs™ and Floor ETFs™ seek to provide investors structured exposures to broad markets, where the upside growth potential, buffer or floor against the downside, and outcome period are all known, prior to investing. Stacker ETFs™ are the world’s first ETFs to offer a multiple or "stacked" exposure to two or three benchmark index ETFs (SPY, QQQ, IWM) to a cap, with only downside exposure to the SPY over a one year outcome period. Having launched the first Defined Outcome ETFs™ in 2018 -- the flagship Innovator S&P 500 Buffer ETF™ Suite – Innovator’s solutions allow advisors to construct diversified portfolios with known outcome ranges to aid in risk management and financial planning. Built on a foundation of innovation and driven by a commitment to help investors better control their financial outcomes, Innovator is leading the Defined Outcome ETF Revolution™. For additional information, visit www.innovatoretfs.com.
About Cboe Global Markets, Inc.
Cboe Global Markets (Cboe: CBOE) is one of the world’s largest exchange-holding companies, offering cutting-edge trading and investment solutions to investors around the world. For more information, visit www.cboe.com.
About Milliman Financial Risk Management LLC
Milliman Financial Risk Management LLC (Milliman FRM) is a global leader in financial risk management to the retirement industry, providing investment advisory, hedging, and consulting services on over $143 billion in global assets as of June 30, 2020. Milliman FRM is one of the largest and fastest-growing subadvisors of ETFs. For more information about Milliman FRM, visit www.Milliman.com/FRM.
Interim Period Shareholders
Unlike structured notes, which offer limited liquidity, Innovator Defined Outcome ETFs™ trade throughout the day on an exchange, like a stock. As a result, investors purchasing shares of a Fund after its launch date may achieve a different payoff profile than those who entered the Fund on day one. Innovator recognizes this as a benefit of the Funds and provides a web-based tool that allows investors to know, in real-time throughout the trading day, their potential defined outcome return profile before they invest, based on the current ETF price and the Outcome Period remaining. Innovator’s web tool can be accessed at http://www.innovatoretfs.com/define.
Although each Fund seeks to achieve the defined outcomes stated in its investment objective, there is no guarantee that it will do so. The returns that the Funds seek to provide do not include the costs associated with purchasing shares of the Fund and certain expenses incurred by the Fund.
Investing involves risks. Loss of principal is possible. The Funds face numerous market trading risks, including active markets risk, authorized participation concentration risk, buffered loss risk, cap change risk, capped upside return risk, correlation risk, liquidity risk, management risk, market maker risk, market risk, non-diversification risk, operation risk, options risk, trading issues risk, upside participation risk and valuation risk. For a detail list of fund risks see the prospectus.
Market Disruptions Resulting from COVID-19. The outbreak of COVID-19 has negatively affected the worldwide economy, individual countries, individual companies and the market in general. The future impact of COVID-19 is currently unknown, and it may exacerbate other risks that apply to the Fund.
Foreign and Emerging Markets Risk Non-U.S. securities and Emerging Markets are subject to higher volatility than securities of domestic issuers due to possible adverse political, social or economic developments, restrictions on foreign investment or exchange of securities, lack of liquidity, currency exchange rates, excessive taxation, government seizure of assets, different legal or accounting standards, and less government supervision and regulation of securities exchanges in foreign countries.
Technology Sector Risk Companies in the technology sector are often smaller and can be characterized by relatively higher volatility in price performance when compared to other economic sectors. They can face intense competition, which may have an adverse effect on profit margins.
Small-Cap Risk Small-cap companies may be more volatile and susceptible to adverse developments than their mid- and large-cap counterpart. In addition, the small-cap companies may be less liquid than larger companies.
FLEX Options Risk The Fund will utilize FLEX Options issued and guaranteed for settlement by the Options Clearing Corporation (OCC). In the unlikely event that the OCC becomes insolvent or is otherwise unable to meet its settlement obligations, the Fund could suffer significant losses. Additionally, FLEX Options may be less liquid than standard options. In a less liquid market for the FLEX Options, the Fund may have difficulty closing out certain FLEX Options positions at desired times and prices. The values of FLEX Options do not increase or decrease at the same rate as the reference asset and may vary due to factors other than the price of reference asset.
Stacker ETFs While the Funds will not participate in any QQQ or IWM ETF (as applicable) losses over the duration of the Outcome Period as whole, a decrease in the value of the QQQ or IWM ETF share price will cause a decrease in the Fund’s NAV while an Outcome Period is ongoing. In the event an Outcome Period has begun, and the QQQ or IWM ETF share price has increased in value, such an increase will be reflected in the value of the Fund’s purchased call option on the QQQ or IWM ETF. Accordingly, in the event that the QQQ or IWM ETF share price were to subsequently decrease in value, that decrease would also be reflected in the value of that option, and therefore the Fund’s NAV. An investor that purchases Fund Shares after the QQQ or IWM ETF has increased in value during an Outcome Period may be negatively affected by future decreases during the remainder of the Outcome Period.
These Funds are designed to provide point-to-point exposure to the price return of the Reference Asset via a basket of Flex Options. As a result, the ETFs are not expected to move directly in line with the Reference Asset during the interim period.
Investors purchasing shares after an outcome period has begun may experience very different results than funds' investment objective. Initial outcome periods are approximately 1-year beginning on the funds' inception date. Following the initial outcome period, each subsequent outcome period will begin on the first day of the month the fund was incepted. After the conclusion of an outcome period, another will begin.
Fund shareholders are subject to an upside return cap (the "Cap") that represents the maximum percentage return an investor can achieve from an investment in the funds' for the Outcome Period, before fees and expenses. If the Outcome Period has begun and the Fund has increased in value to a level near to the Cap, an investor purchasing at that price has little or no ability to achieve gains but remains vulnerable to downside risks. Additionally, the Cap may rise or fall from one Outcome Period to the next. The Cap, and the Fund's position relative to it, should be considered before investing in the Fund. The Funds' website, www.innovatoretfs.com, provides important Fund information as well information relating to the potential outcomes of an investment in a Fund on a daily basis.
The Funds with buffer mechanisms only seek to provide shareholders that hold shares for the entire Outcome Period with their respective buffer level against Reference Asset losses during the Outcome Period. You will bear all Reference Asset losses exceeding 9, 15 or 30%. Depending upon market conditions at the time of purchase, a shareholder that purchases shares after the Outcome Period has begun may also lose their entire investment. For instance, if the Outcome Period has begun and the Fund has decreased in value beyond the pre-determined buffer, an investor purchasing shares at that price may not benefit from the buffer. Similarly, if the Outcome Period has begun and the Fund has increased in value, an investor purchasing shares at that price may not benefit from the buffer until the Fund's value has decreased to its value at the commencement of the Outcome Period.
THE CORPORATIONS MAKE NO WARRANTIES AND BEAR NO LIABILITY WITH RESPECT TO THE PRODUCT(S).
Cboe Global Markets, Inc., and its affiliates do not recommend or make any representation as to possible Benefits from any securities, futures or investments, or third-party products or services. Cboe Global Markets, Inc., is not affiliated with S&P DJI, Milliman, or Innovator Capital Management. Investors should undertake their own due diligence regarding their securities, futures and investment practices.
Cboe Global Markets, Inc., and its affiliates make no warranty, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, any warranties as of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, completeness or timeliness, or as to the results to be obtained by recipients of the products.
* ETF.com’s editorial team chose the finalists and then the ETF.com Awards Selection Committee, an independent panel comprised of fifteen of the ETF industry’s leading analysts, consultants and investors, decided the winners.
Innovator ETFsTM, Defined Outcome ETFTM, Buffer ETFTM, Enhanced ETFTM, Define Your FutureTM, Leading the Defined Outcome ETF RevolutionTM and other service marks and trademarks related to these marks are the exclusive property of Innovator Capital Management, LLC.
The Funds' investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses should be considered before investing. The prospectus contains this and other important information, and it may be obtained at innovatoretfs.com. Read it carefully before investing.
Innovator ETFs are distributed by Foreside Fund Services, LLC.
Copyright © 2021 Innovator Capital Management, LLC.
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1 AUM and flows are through 2.26.2021.
2 AUM in all Innovator Defined Outcome ETFs as of 2.26.2021.
3 Structured notes and structured annuities are financial instruments designed and created to afford investors exposure to an underlying asset through a derivative contract. It is important to note that these ETFs are not structured notes or structured annuities.