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Is AGDYX a Strong Bond Fund Right Now?

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If you have been looking for Mutual Fund Bond funds, a place to start could be AB High Income Fund Adviser (AGDYX - Free Report) . AGDYX carries 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

AllianceBernstein is based in New York, NY, and is the manager of AGDYX. Since AB High Income Fund Adviser made its debut in January of 2008, AGDYX has garnered more than $1.80 billion in assets. The fund's current manager is a team of investment professionals.

Performance

Of course, investors look for strong performance in funds. This fund carries a 5-year annualized total return of 3.36%, and is in the bottom third among its category peers. Investors who prefer analyzing shorter time frames should look at its 3-year annualized total return of 1.61%, 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 13.55%, the standard deviation of AGDYX over the past three years is 8.22%. Looking at the past 5 years, the fund's standard deviation is 11.45% compared to the category average of 14.35%. This makes the fund less volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

AGDYX carries a beta of 0.16, meaning that the fund is less volatile than a broad market index of fixed income securities. With this in mind, it has a positive alpha of 3.02, which measures performance on a risk-adjusted basis.

Ratings

Investors should also consider a bond's rating, which is a grade ( 'AAA' to 'D' ) given to a bond that indicates its credit quality. With this letter scale in mind, AGDYX 's junk bond component-bonds rated 'BB' or below-is at 70.55%. This means that the fund has an average quality of BBB, and focuses on medium quality securities.

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, AGDYX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.66% compared to the category average of 0.96%. AGDYX is actually cheaper than its peers when you consider factors like cost.

This fund requires a minimum initial investment of $0, while there is no minimum for each subsequent investment.

Fees charged by investment advisors have not been taken into considiration. Returns would be less if those were included.

Bottom Line

Overall, AB High Income Fund Adviser ( AGDYX ) has a high Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively weak performance, average downside risk, and lower fees, this fund looks like a great potential choice for investors right now.

For additional information on the Mutual Fund Bond 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 AGDYX too 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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