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Is Vanguard Industrials Index Admiral (VINAX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?

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Looking for a Mutual Fund Equity Report fund? You may want to consider Vanguard Industrials Index Admiral (VINAX - Free Report) as a possible option. While this fund is not tracked by the Zacks Mutual Fund Rank, we were able to examine other factors like performance, volatility, and cost.

History of Fund/Manager

Vanguard Group is based in Malvern, PA, and is the manager of VINAX. The Vanguard Industrials Index Admiral made its debut in September of 2004 and VINAX has managed to accumulate roughly $225.08 million in assets, as of the most recently available information. The fund is currently managed by Walter Nejman who has been in charge of the fund since December of 2015.

Performance

Investors naturally seek funds with strong performance. This fund has delivered a 5-year annualized total return of 4.87%, and it sits in the middle third among its category peers. If you're interested in shorter time frames, do not dismiss looking at the fund's 3-year annualized total return of 4.02%, 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. Over the past three years, VINAX's standard deviation comes in at 23.64%, compared to the category average of 25.6%. Looking at the past 5 years, the fund's standard deviation is 21.87% compared to the category average of 23.16%. This makes the fund less volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

Risk Factors

The fund has a 5-year beta of 1.13, so investors should note that it is hypothetically more volatile than the market at large. 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 -4.42, which shows that managers in this portfolio find it difficult to pick securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.

Holdings

Exploring the equity holdings of a mutual fund is also a valuable exercise. This can show us how the manager is applying their stated methodology, as well as if there are any inherent biases in their approach. For this particular fund, the focus is primarily on equities that are traded in the United States.

Currently, this mutual fund is holding 94.88% stock in stocks, with an average market capitalization of $56.63 billion. The fund has the heaviest exposure to the following market sectors:

  1. Industrial Cyclical
  2. Technology
Turnover is 4%, which means, on average, the fund makes fewer trades than comparable funds.

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, VINAX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.10% compared to the category average of 0.92%. So, VINAX is actually cheaper than its peers from a cost perspective.

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

Bottom Line

Want even more information about VINAX? Then go over to Zacks.com and check out our mutual fund comparison tool, and all of the other great features that we have to help you with your mutual fund analysis for additional information. Zacks provides a full suite of tools to help you analyze your portfolio - both funds and stocks - in the most efficient way possible.


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