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Any investors hoping to find a Large Cap Growth fund might consider looking past Prudential Jennison Growth Z (PJFZX). PJFZX has a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 4 (Sell), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.
Objective
PJFZX 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
Prudential is responsible for PJFZX, and the company is based out of Providence, RI. Since Prudential Jennison Growth Z made its debut in April of 1996, PJFZX has garnered more than $3.17 billion in assets. A team of investment professionals is the fund's current manager.
Performance
Investors naturally seek funds with strong performance. This fund in particular has delivered a 5-year annualized total return of 12.64%, and is in the top third among its category peers. Investors who prefer analyzing shorter time frames should look at its 3-year annualized total return of 11.36%, 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. Compared to the category average of 9.15%, the standard deviation of PJFZX over the past three years is 13.69%. Looking at the past 5 years, the fund's standard deviation is 13.41% compared to the category average of 9.29%. 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 the most recent bear market, PJFZX lost 44.43% and outperformed its peer group by 4.35%. This makes the fund a possibly better choice than its peers during a sliding market environment.
Nevertheless, investors should also note that the fund has a 5-year beta of 1.12, 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. PJFZX has generated a positive alpha over the past five years of 0.26, demonstrating that managers in this portfolio are skilled in picking securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.