The Fund seeks to achieve its investment objective by active asset allocation among market sectors in the fixed income universe. These sectors may include, for example, U.S. Government securities, corporate debt securities, mortgage- and other asset-backed securities, foreign debt securities, including emerging market debt securities, loans, and high yield debt securities. The Adviser has broad flexibility to use various investment strategies and to invest in a wide variety of fixed income instruments that the Adviser believes offer the potential for current income, capital appreciation, or both. The Fund is not constrained by management against any index.

The Adviser expects to allocate the Fund’s assets in response to changing market, financial, economic, and political factors and events that the Fund’s portfolio managers believe may affect the values of the Fund’s investments. The allocation of the Fund’s assets to different sectors and issuers will change over time, sometimes rapidly, and the Fund may invest without limit in a single sector or a small number of sectors of the fixed income universe.

In managing the Fund’s portfolio, the portfolio managers typically use a controlled risk approach. The techniques of this approach attempt to control the principal risk components of the fixed income markets and may include, among other factors, consideration of the Adviser’s view of the following: the potential relative performance of various market sectors, security selection available within a given sector, the risk/reward equation for different asset classes, liquidity conditions in various market sectors, the shape of the yield curve and projections for changes in the yield curve, potential fluctuations in the overall level of interest rates, and current fiscal policy.

The Fund may invest in securities of any credit quality. The Fund may invest without limit in securities rated below investment grade (securities rated Ba1 or below by Moody’s Investors Service, Inc. (“Moody’s”) and BB+ or below by S&P Global Ratings (“S&P”) and Fitch Ratings, Inc. (“Fitch”)) or unrated securities judged by the Adviser to be of comparable quality.

Corporate bonds and certain other fixed income instruments rated below investment grade, or such instruments that are unrated and determined by the Adviser to be of comparable quality, are high yield, high risk bonds, commonly known as “junk bonds.”

The Fund may invest without limit in foreign securities, including emerging market securities and securities denominated in foreign currencies, including the local currencies of emerging markets.

The Adviser monitors the duration of the Fund’s portfolio securities to seek to assess and, in its discretion, adjust the Fund’s exposure to interest rate risk. The Adviser seeks to manage the Fund’s duration based on the Adviser’s view of, among other things, future interest rates and market conditions. There are no limits on the duration of the Fund’s portfolio. The Adviser retains broad discretion to modify the Fund’s duration within a wide range, including the discretion to construct a portfolio of investments for the Fund with a negative duration. Duration is a measure of the expected life of a fixed income instrument that is used to determine the sensitivity of a security’s price to changes in interest rates. Effective duration is a measure of the Fund’s portfolio duration adjusted for the anticipated effect of interest rate changes on bond and mortgage prepayment rates as determined by the Adviser.

Under normal circumstances, the Fund intends to invest significantly in instruments the Adviser expects to produce current income. These might include, by way of example, (i) securities or other income-producing instruments issued or guaranteed by the U.S. Government, its agencies, instrumentalities or sponsored corporations (including inflation-protected securities); (ii) corporate obligations; (iii) mortgage-backed securities (including commercial and residential mortgage-backed securities) and other asset-backed securities, collateralized mortgage obligations, government mortgage pass-through securities, multiclass pass-through securities, private mortgage pass-through securities, stripped mortgage securities (e.g., interest-only and principal-only securities), and inverse floaters; (iv) collateralized debt obligations (“CDOs”), including collateralized loan obligations (“CLOs”); (v) foreign securities (corporate and government, including foreign hybrid securities), including emerging market securities; (vi) fixed and floating rate loans of any kind (including, among others, bank loans, assignments, participations, senior loans, second lien or other subordinated or unsecured fixed or floating rate loans, debtor‑in‑possession loans, exit facilities, delayed funding loans and revolving credit facilities), which may take the form of loans that contain fewer or less restrictive constraints on the borrower than certain other types of loans (“covenant-lite” loans); (vii) municipal securities and other debt obligations issued by states, local governments, and government-sponsored entities, including their agencies, authorities, and instrumentalities; (viii) inflation-indexed bonds; (ix) convertible securities; (x) preferred securities; (xi) real estate investment trust (“REIT”) securities; (xii) distressed and defaulted securities; (xiii) payment‑in‑kind bonds; (xiv) zero‑coupon bonds; (xv) custodial receipts, cash and cash equivalents; (xvi) short-term, high quality investments, including, for example, commercial paper, bankers’ acceptances, certificates of deposit, bank time deposits, repurchase agreements, and investments in money market mutual funds or similar pooled investments; and (xvii) other instruments bearing fixed, floating, or variable interest rates of any maturity. The Fund may invest in any level of the capital structure of an issuer of mortgage-backed or asset-backed securities, including the equity or “first loss” tranche.

The Fund may enter into derivatives transactions and other instruments of any kind for hedging purposes or otherwise to gain, or reduce, long or short exposure to one or more asset classes or issuers. The Fund also may use derivatives transactions with the purpose or effect of creating investment leverage. The Adviser may seek to manage the dollar-weighted average effective duration of the Fund’s portfolio through the use of derivatives and other instruments (including, among others, inverse floaters, futures contracts, U.S. Treasury swaps, interest rate swaps, total return swaps and options, including options on swap agreements). The Fund may incur costs in implementing duration management strategies, and there can be no assurance that the Fund will engage in duration management strategies or that any duration management strategy employed by the Fund will be successful. The Fund may enter into currency-related transactions, including forward exchange contracts and futures contracts. The Fund may, but will not necessarily, enter into foreign currency exchange transactions to hedge against currency exposure in its portfolio.

The Fund may implement short positions, including through the use of derivative instruments, such as swaps or futures, or through short sales of instruments that are eligible investments for the Fund. For example, the Fund may enter into a futures contract pursuant to which it agrees to sell an asset (that it does not currently own) at a specified price in the future in anticipation that the asset’s value will decrease between the time the position is established and the agreed date of sale.

The Fund may purchase or sell securities on a when-issued, delayed delivery or forward commitment basis and may engage in short sales, either to earn additional return or to hedge existing investments. The Fund may seek to obtain market exposure to the securities in which it primarily invests by entering into a series of purchase and sale contracts or by using other investment techniques (such as buy backs or dollar rolls), which may create investment leverage.

The Fund may pursue its investment objective and obtain exposures to some or all of the asset classes described above by investing in other investment companies, including, for example, other open‑end or closed‑end investment companies and ETFs, including other DoubleLine funds. The amount of the Fund’s investment in certain investment companies may be limited by law or by tax considerations.

Portfolio securities may be sold at any time. By way of example, sales may occur when the Fund’s portfolio managers determine to take advantage of what the portfolio managers consider to be a better investment opportunity, when the portfolio managers believe the portfolio securities no longer represent relatively attractive investment opportunities, when the portfolio managers perceive deterioration in the credit fundamentals of the issuer, or when the individual security has reached the portfolio managers’ sell target.