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Any investors hoping to find a Pacific Rim - Equity fund might consider looking past Matthews India Fund (MINDX). MINDX carries a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 4 (Sell), which is based on various forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.
Objective
MINDX is classified in the Pacific Rim - Equity segment by Zacks, which is an area full of possibilities. Pacific Rim - Equity mutual funds see big investment opportunities in the dominant export-focused markets of Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and Korea. These funds also invest less than 10% of their assets in Japanese firms, as Japan mutual funds are very popular.
History of Fund/Manager
MINDX is a part of the Matthews Asia family of funds, a company based out of San Francisco, CA. Matthews India Fund made its debut in October of 2005, and since then, MINDX has accumulated about $720.16 million in assets, per the most up-to-date date available. The fund is currently managed by Peeyush Mittal who has been in charge of the fund since April of 2018.
Performance
Obviously, what investors are looking for in these funds is strong performance relative to their peers. MINDX has a 5-year annualized total return of 11.1% and it sits in the bottom third among its category peers. Investors who prefer analyzing shorter time frames should look at its 3-year annualized total return of 6.87%, which places it in the top third during this time-frame.
It is important to note that the product's returns may not reflect all its expenses. Any fees not reflected would lower the returns. Total returns do not reflect the fund's [%] sale charge. If sales charges were included, total returns would have been lower.
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. Compared to the category average of 13.67%, the standard deviation of MINDX over the past three years is 12.42%. The standard deviation of the fund over the past 5 years is 20.28% compared to the category average of 17.61%. This makes the fund more volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.
Risk Factors
Investors should not forget about beta, an important way to measure a mutual fund's risk compared to the market as a whole. MINDX has a 5-year beta of 0.75, which means it is likely to be less volatile than the market average. 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 0.26. This means that managers in this portfolio are skilled in picking securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.