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Is DINAX a Strong Bond Fund Right Now?

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Have you been searching for a Mutual Fund Bond fund? You might want to begin with Morgan Stanley Global Fixed Income Opportunity A (DINAX - Free Report) . DINAX possesses a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 3 (Hold), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

History of Fund/Manager

MorgStanley is based in New York, NY, and is the manager of DINAX. The Morgan Stanley Global Fixed Income Opportunity A made its debut in August of 1997 and DINAX has managed to accumulate roughly $92.88 million in assets, as of the most recently available information. The fund's current manager is a team of investment professionals.

Performance

Obviously, what investors are looking for in these funds is strong performance relative to their peers. This fund has delivered a 5-year annualized total return of 1.74%, and it sits 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 -0.36%, 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. The standard deviation of DINAX over the past three years is 6.44% compared to the category average of 13.53%. The fund's standard deviation over the past 5 years is 5.19% compared to the category average of 11.98%. This makes the fund less volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

DINAX carries a beta of 0.38, meaning that the fund is less volatile than a broad market index of fixed income securities. With this in mind, it has a positive alpha of 0.87, which measures performance on a risk-adjusted basis.

Ratings

Investors should also consider a bond's rating, which is a grade ( 'AAA' to 'D' ) given to a bond that indicates its credit quality. With this letter scale in mind, DINAX has 37.07% in medium quality bonds, with ratings of 'A' to 'BBB'. The fund's junk bond component-bonds rated 'BB' or below-is at 27.58%, giving DINAX an average quality of BBB. This means that it focuses on medium quality securities.

However, it is worth noting that 28 % of the bonds in this fund are not ranked, so take the average quality level with a bit of caution.

Expenses

As competition heats up in the mutual fund market, costs become increasingly important. Compared to its otherwise identical counterpart, a low-cost product will be an outperformer, all other things being equal. Thus, taking a closer look at cost-related metrics is vital for investors. In terms of fees, DINAX is a load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.83% compared to the category average of 0.83%. So, DINAX is actually on par with its peers from a cost perspective.

While the minimum initial investment for the product is $1,000, investors should also note that each subsequent investment needs to be at least $100.

Bottom Line

Overall, Morgan Stanley Global Fixed Income Opportunity A ( DINAX ) has a neutral Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively similar performance, better downside risk, and on par fees, Morgan Stanley Global Fixed Income Opportunity A ( DINAX ) looks like a somewhat average choice for investors right now.

For additional information on this product, or to compare it to other mutual funds in the Mutual Fund Bond, make sure to go to www.zacks.com/funds/mutual-funds for additional information. If you want to check out our stock reports as well, make sure to go to Zacks.com to see all of the great tools we have to offer, including our time-tested Zacks Rank.


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