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Is Oppenheimer Gold & Special Mineral A (OPGSX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?

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There are plenty of choices in the Sector - Precious Metal category, but where should you start your research? Well, one fund that might be worth investigating is Oppenheimer Gold & Special Mineral A (OPGSX - Free Report) . OPGSX has a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 1 (Strong Buy), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

Objective

OPGSX is classified in the Sector - Precious Metal segment by Zacks, an area full of potential. Sector - Precious Metal mutual funds normally invest in stocks focused on the mining and production of precious metals such as gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. Often times, stocks here trade as leveraged bets of the underlying commodity, so they are tied to the prices of the metal, and can be quite volatile, too.

History of Fund/Manager

OPGSX finds itself in the Invesco family, based out of Kansas City, MO. Oppenheimer Gold & Special Mineral A made its debut in July of 1983, and since then, OPGSX has accumulated about $894.88 million in assets, per the most up-to-date date available. The fund is currently managed by Shanquan Li who has been in charge of the fund since July of 1997.

Performance

Investors naturally seek funds with strong performance. This fund in particular has delivered a 5-year annualized total return of 5.15%, and it sits 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 19.86%, 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. OPGSX's standard deviation over the past three years is 34.78% compared to the category average of 19.18%. Looking at the past 5 years, the fund's standard deviation is 30.51% compared to the category average of 16.21%. This makes the fund more volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

Risk Factors

With a 5-year beta of 0.82, the fund is likely to be less volatile than the market average. 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. The fund has produced a negative alpha over the past 5 years of -4.55, which shows that managers in this portfolio find it difficult to pick securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.

Expenses

For investors, taking a closer look at cost-related metrics is key, since costs are increasingly important for mutual fund investing. Competition is heating up in this space, and a lower cost product will likely outperform its otherwise identical counterpart, all things being equal. In terms of fees, OPGSX is a load fund. It has an expense ratio of 1.05% compared to the category average of 1.38%. From a cost perspective, OPGSX is actually cheaper than its peers.

Investors should also note that the minimum initial investment for the product is $1,000 and that each subsequent investment needs to be at $50.

Bottom Line

Overall, Oppenheimer Gold & Special Mineral A ( OPGSX ) has a high Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively strong performance, worse downside risk, and lower fees, Oppenheimer Gold & Special Mineral A ( OPGSX ) looks like a good potential choice for investors right now.

For additional information on this product, or to compare it to other mutual funds in the Sector - Precious Metal, make sure to go to www.zacks.com/funds/mutual-funds for additional information. And don't forget, Zacks has all of your needs covered on the equity side too! Make sure to check out Zacks.com for more information on our screening capabilities, Rank, and all our articles as well.


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