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Is T. Rowe Price Personal Strategy Growth (TRSGX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?

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There are plenty of choices in the Mutual Fund Equity Report category, but where should you start your research? Well, one fund that may not be worth investigating is T. Rowe Price Personal Strategy Growth (TRSGX - Free Report) . TRSGX holds a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 4 (Sell), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

History of Fund/Manager

T. Rowe Price is based in Baltimore, MD, and is the manager of TRSGX. Since T. Rowe Price Personal Strategy Growth made its debut in July of 1994, TRSGX has garnered more than $1.68 billion in assets. The fund is currently managed by Charles Shriver who has been in charge of the fund since May of 2011.

Performance

Investors naturally seek funds with strong performance. This fund in particular has delivered a 5-year annualized total return of 5.28%, 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 4.43%, which places it in the bottom 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. TRSGX's standard deviation over the past three years is 17.16% compared to the category average of 16.9%. The fund's standard deviation over the past 5 years is 14.9% compared to the category average of 14.8%. This makes the fund more volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

Risk Factors

The fund has a 5-year beta of 0.78, so investors should note that it is hypothetically less 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. Over the past 5 years, the fund has a negative alpha of -3.45. This means that managers in this portfolio find it difficult to pick securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.

Expenses

Costs are increasingly important for mutual fund investing, and particularly as competition heats up in this market. And all things being equal, a lower cost product will outperform its otherwise identical counterpart, so taking a closer look at these metrics is key for investors. In terms of fees, TRSGX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.61% compared to the category average of 0.78%. So, TRSGX is actually cheaper than its peers from a cost perspective.

This fund requires a minimum initial investment of $2,500, and each subsequent investment should be at least $100.

Bottom Line

Overall, T. Rowe Price Personal Strategy Growth ( TRSGX ) has a low Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively similar performance, average downside risk, and lower fees, T. Rowe Price Personal Strategy Growth ( TRSGX ) looks like a somewhat weak choice for investors right now.

For additional information on the Mutual Fund Equity Report area of the mutual fund world, make sure to check out www.zacks.com/funds/mutual-funds. There, you can see more about the ranking process, and dive even deeper into TRSGX too 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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