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On the lookout for a Large Cap Growth fund? Starting with JPMorgan Large Cap Growth A (OLGAX) is one possibility. OLGAX has a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 2 (Buy), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.
Objective
OLGAX is classified in the Large Cap Growth segment by Zacks, an area full of possibilities. Companies are usually considered to be large-cap if their stock market valuation is more than $10 billion. Large Cap Growth mutual funds invest in many large U.S. firms that are projected to grow at a faster rate than their large-cap peers.
History of Fund/Manager
J.P. Morgan is based in Boston, MA, and is the manager of OLGAX. JPMorgan Large Cap Growth A debuted in February of 1994. Since then, OLGAX has accumulated assets of about $2.63 billion, according to the most recently available information. The fund's current manager, Giri K Devulapally, has been in charge of the fund since August of 2004.
Performance
Investors naturally seek funds with strong performance. OLGAX has a 5-year annualized total return of 18.02% and is in the top third among its category peers. But if you are looking for a shorter time frame, it is also worth looking at its 3-year annualized total return of 19.21%, which places it in the top 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. OLGAX's standard deviation over the past three years is 12.7% compared to the category average of 9.23%. The standard deviation of the fund over the past 5 years is 12.26% compared to the category average of 8.97%. This makes the fund more volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.
Risk Factors
Investors should always remember the downsides to a potential investment, and this segment carries some risks one should be aware of. In OLGAX's case, the fund lost 47.74% in the most recent bear market and underperformed its peer group by 1.23%. This makes the fund a possibly worse choice than its peers during a sliding market environment.
Nevertheless, investors should also note that the fund has a 5-year beta of 1.05, which means it is hypothetically more volatile than the market at large. Because alpha represents a portfolio's performance on a risk-adjusted basis relative to a benchmark, which is the S&P 500 in this case, one should pay attention to this metric as well. Over the past 5 years, the fund has a positive alpha of 2.67. This means that managers in this portfolio are skilled in picking securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.