1.3.5.2. Investment Company Rankings
Member firms may not use a ranking of investment companies in any retail communication unless it was created and published by a ranking entity or based on a ranking entity’s performance measurements. A ranking entity is any company (such as Moody’s or Standard & Poor’s) that provides independent general information about investment companies to the public and whose services are not procured by the investment company to assign a ranking.
All retail communications containing an investment company ranking must disclose prominently:
• Name of the category (e.g., growth)
• Number of investment companies in the category
• Name of the ranking entity
• Length of the ranking period and its ending date
• Criteria (such as yield or total return) on which the ranking is based
Such communications must also disclose the fact that past performance is no guarantee of future results and whether or not the ranking takes sales loads into ac