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Is American Funds EuroPacific Growth R5 (RERFX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?

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Having trouble finding a Mutual Fund Equity Report fund? Well, American Funds EuroPacific Growth R5 (RERFX - Free Report) would not be a good potential starting point right now. RERFX possesses a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 5 (Strong Sell), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

History of Fund/Manager

American Funds is based in Los Angeles, CA, and is the manager of RERFX. The American Funds EuroPacific Growth R5 made its debut in November of 2002 and RERFX has managed to accumulate roughly $5.21 billion in assets, as of the most recently available information. A team of investment professionals is the fund's current manager.

Performance

Investors naturally seek funds with strong performance. This fund has delivered a 5-year annualized total return of 3.05%, and is in the middle third among its category peers. Investors who prefer analyzing shorter time frames should look at its 3-year annualized total return of 1.44%, which places it in the middle third during this time-frame.

When looking at a fund's performance, it is also important to note the standard deviation of the returns. The lower the standard deviation, the less volatility the fund experiences. RERFX's standard deviation over the past three years is 19.14% compared to the category average of 15.11%. The fund's standard deviation over the past 5 years is 17.11% compared to the category average of 13.49%. This makes the fund more volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

Risk Factors

With a 5-year beta of 0.9, the fund is likely to be less volatile than the market average. Alpha is an additional metric to take into consideration, since it represents a portfolio's performance on a risk-adjusted basis relative to a benchmark, which in this case, is the S&P 500. The fund has produced a negative alpha over the past 5 years of -6.41, which shows that managers in this portfolio find it difficult to pick securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.

Expenses

For investors, taking a closer look at cost-related metrics is key, since costs are increasingly important for mutual fund investing. Competition is heating up in this space, and a lower cost product will likely outperform its otherwise identical counterpart, all things being equal. In terms of fees, RERFX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.51% compared to the category average of 1.15%. RERFX is actually cheaper than its peers when you consider factors like cost.

Investors need to be aware that with this product, the minimum initial investment is $250; each subsequent investment needs to be at least $50.

Bottom Line

Overall, American Funds EuroPacific Growth R5 ( RERFX ) has a low Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively similar performance, average downside risk, and lower fees, American Funds EuroPacific Growth R5 ( RERFX ) looks like a somewhat weak choice for investors right now.

This could just be the start of your research on RERFXin the Mutual Fund Equity Report category. Consider going to www.zacks.com/funds/mutual-funds for additional information about this fund, and all the others that we rank as well for additional information. For analysis of the rest of your portfolio, make sure to visit Zacks.com for our full suite of tools which will help you investigate all of your stocks and funds in one place.


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