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Is Harbor Capital Appreciation Retirement (HNACX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?

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If you have been looking for Mutual Fund Equity Report funds, a place to start could be Harbor Capital Appreciation Retirement (HNACX - Free Report) . HNACX holds a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 2 (Buy), which is based on various forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

History of Fund/Manager

HNACX is a part of the Harbor Funds family of funds, a company based out of Chicago, IL. Harbor Capital Appreciation Retirement made its debut in March of 2016, and since then, HNACX has accumulated about $7.11 billion in assets, per the most up-to-date date available. A team of investment professionals is the fund's current manager.

Performance

Investors naturally seek funds with strong performance. This fund carries a 5-year annualized total return of 10.8%, and is in the middle third among its category peers. If you're interested in shorter time frames, do not dismiss looking at the fund's 3-year annualized total return of 14.36%, which places it in the bottom 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. HNACX's standard deviation over the past three years is 26.92% compared to the category average of 18.86%. The fund's standard deviation over the past 5 years is 23.9% compared to the category average of 16.62%. 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. HNACX has a 5-year beta of 1.16, 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. HNACX has generated a negative alpha over the past five years of -0.96, 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 88.6% of its holdings in stocks, which have an average market capitalization of $318 billion. The fund has the heaviest exposure to the following market sectors:

  • Technology
  • Retail Trade
With turnover at about 34%, this fund is making fewer trades than comparable funds.

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, HNACX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.58% compared to the category average of 0.99%. So, HNACX is actually cheaper than its peers from a cost perspective.

While the minimum initial investment for the product is $1 million, investors should also note that there is no minimum for each subsequent investment.

Bottom Line

Overall, Harbor Capital Appreciation Retirement ( HNACX ) has a high Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively similar performance, worse downside risk, and lower fees, Harbor Capital Appreciation Retirement ( HNACX ) looks like a great potential choice for investors right now.

For additional information on the Mutual Fund Equity Report area of the mutual fund world, make sure to check out www.zacks.com/funds/mutual-funds. There, you can see more about the ranking process, and dive even deeper into HNACX too 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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