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Is Harbor Capital Appreciation Institutional (HACAX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?

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If you're looking for a Mutual Fund Equity Report fund category, then a potential option is Harbor Capital Appreciation Institutional (HACAX - Free Report) . HACAX bears a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 3 (Hold), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

History of Fund/Manager

Harbor Funds is based in Chicago, IL, and is the manager of HACAX. The Harbor Capital Appreciation Institutional made its debut in December of 1987 and HACAX has managed to accumulate roughly $18.21 billion in assets, as of the most recently available information. The fund's current manager is a team of investment professionals.

Performance

Obviously, what investors are looking for in these funds is strong performance relative to their peers. HACAX has a 5-year annualized total return of 12.1% 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 11.33%, 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. Over the past three years, HACAX's standard deviation comes in at 26%, compared to the category average of 17.26%. The fund's standard deviation over the past 5 years is 22.78% compared to the category average of 15.36%. 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. HACAX has a 5-year beta of 1.17, which means it is likely to be more 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. HACAX has generated a negative alpha over the past five years of -0.72, demonstrating that managers in this portfolio find it difficult to pick securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.

Holdings

Investigating the equity holdings of a mutual fund is also a valuable exercise. This can show us how the manager is applying their stated methodology, as well as if there are any inherent biases in their approach. For this particular fund, the focus is principally on equities that are traded in the United States.

The mutual fund currently has 98.43% of its holdings in stocks, and these companies have an average market capitalization of $489.53 billion. The fund has the heaviest exposure to the following market sectors:

  1. Technology
  2. Retail Trade
Turnover is about 40%, so those in charge of the fund make fewer trades than the average comparable fund.

Expenses

Costs are increasingly important for mutual fund investing, and particularly as competition heats up in this market. And all things being equal, a lower cost product will outperform its otherwise identical counterpart, so taking a closer look at these metrics is key for investors. In terms of fees, HACAX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.65% compared to the category average of 0.99%. So, HACAX is actually cheaper than its peers from a cost perspective.

While the minimum initial investment for the product is $50,000, investors should also note that there is no minimum for each subsequent investment.

Bottom Line

Overall, Harbor Capital Appreciation Institutional ( HACAX ) has a neutral Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively similar performance, worse downside risk, and lower fees, Harbor Capital Appreciation Institutional ( HACAX ) looks like a somewhat average choice for investors right now.

This could just be the start of your research on HACAXin the Mutual Fund Equity Report category. Consider going to www.zacks.com/funds/mutual-funds for additional information about this fund, and all the others that we rank as well for additional information. If you are more of a stock investor, make sure to also check out our Zacks Rank, and our full suite of tools we have available for novice and professional investors alike.


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