If you have been looking for Investment Grade Bond - Intermediate fund category, a potential starting could be PIMCO Total Return A (PTTAX). PTTAX bears a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 3 (Hold), which is based on various forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

Objective

We classify PTTAX in the Investment Grade Bond - Intermediate category, an area rife with potential choices. Investment Grade Bond - Intermediate funds target the middle part of the curve, typically by investing in bonds that mature in more than three years but less than 15 years. At these maturity levels, fixed income instruments have medium duration risk--but they compensate investors with a respectable yield compared to shorter maturity options. Finally, a focus on investment grade ensures that these funds are safer, but yields will be lower than in the junk bond category.

History of Fund/Manager

PIMCO Funds is based in Newport Beach, CA, and is the manager of PTTAX. The PIMCO Total Return A made its debut in May of 1987 and PTTAX has managed to accumulate roughly $4.28 billion in assets, as of the most recently available information. The fund is currently managed by a team of investment professionals.

Performance

Obviously, what investors are looking for in these funds is strong performance relative to their peers. This fund carries a 5-year annualized total return of -0.22%, 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 -2.32%, which places it in the middle 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 13.32%, the standard deviation of PTTAX over the past three years is 7.85%. Looking at the past 5 years, the fund's standard deviation is 6.57% compared to the category average of 13.94%. This makes the fund less volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

With a beta of 1.01, this fund is more volatile than a broad market index of fixed income securities. Taking this into account, PTTAX has a positive alpha of 0.09, which measures performance on a risk-adjusted basis.