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Is Fidelity Equity-Income Fund (FEQIX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?
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If you've been stuck searching for Large Cap Value funds, consider Fidelity Equity-Income Fund (FEQIX - Free Report) as a possibility. FEQIX bears a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 1 (Strong Buy), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.
History of Fund/Manager
Fidelity is based in Boston, MA, and is the manager of FEQIX. The Fidelity Equity-Income Fund made its debut in May of 1966 and FEQIX has managed to accumulate roughly $5.44 billion in assets, as of the most recently available information. The fund's current manager, a team of investment professionals.
Performance
Of course, investors look for strong performance in funds. FEQIX has a 5-year annualized total return of 11.59% 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 7.61%, 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. FEQIX's standard deviation over the past three years is 9.85% compared to the category average of 9.6%. The standard deviation of the fund over the past 5 years is 9.21% compared to the category average of 9.89%. This makes the fund less volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.
Risk Factors
It's always important to be aware of the downsides to any future investment, so one should not discount the risks that come with this segment. In the most recent bear market, FEQIX lost 57.1% and underperformed comparable funds by 6.98%. This makes the fund a possibly worse choice than its peers during a sliding market environment.
And for investors concerned about the potential drawdown in a really bad calendar year, we can look back to 2008 for that figure. The fund lost over 41.64%, its worst calendar year in a decade.
Nevertheless, with a 5-year beta of 0.93, 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. With a negative alpha of -2.16, 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 primarily on equities that are traded in the United States.
Right now, 96.55% of this mutual fund's holdings are stocks, and these companies have an average market capitalization of $122.68 billion. The fund has the heaviest exposure to the following market sectors:
Finance
Technology
This fund's turnover is about 36%, so the fund managers are making fewer trades than the average comparable fund.
Expenses
As competition heats up in the mutual fund market, costs become increasingly important. Compared to its otherwise identical counterpart, a low-cost product will be an outperformer, all other things being equal. Thus, taking a closer look at cost-related metrics is vital for investors. In terms of fees, FEQIX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.62% compared to the category average of 1.05%. So, FEQIX is actually cheaper than its peers from a cost perspective.
This fund requires a minimum initial investment of $2,500, while there is no minimum for each subsequent investment.
Bottom Line
Overall, Fidelity Equity-Income Fund FEQIX has a high Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively similar performance, average downside risk, and lower fees, Fidelity Equity-Income Fund FEQIX looks like a great potential choice for investors right now.
This could just be the start of your research on FEQIX in the Large Cap Value 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. For analysis of the rest of your portfolio, make sure to visit Zacks.com for our full suite of tools which will help you investigate all of your stocks and funds in one place.
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Is Fidelity Equity-Income Fund (FEQIX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?
If you've been stuck searching for Large Cap Value funds, consider Fidelity Equity-Income Fund (FEQIX - Free Report) as a possibility. FEQIX bears a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 1 (Strong Buy), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.
History of Fund/Manager
Fidelity is based in Boston, MA, and is the manager of FEQIX. The Fidelity Equity-Income Fund made its debut in May of 1966 and FEQIX has managed to accumulate roughly $5.44 billion in assets, as of the most recently available information. The fund's current manager, a team of investment professionals.
Performance
Of course, investors look for strong performance in funds. FEQIX has a 5-year annualized total return of 11.59% 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 7.61%, 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. FEQIX's standard deviation over the past three years is 9.85% compared to the category average of 9.6%. The standard deviation of the fund over the past 5 years is 9.21% compared to the category average of 9.89%. This makes the fund less volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.
Risk Factors
It's always important to be aware of the downsides to any future investment, so one should not discount the risks that come with this segment. In the most recent bear market, FEQIX lost 57.1% and underperformed comparable funds by 6.98%. This makes the fund a possibly worse choice than its peers during a sliding market environment.
And for investors concerned about the potential drawdown in a really bad calendar year, we can look back to 2008 for that figure. The fund lost over 41.64%, its worst calendar year in a decade.
Nevertheless, with a 5-year beta of 0.93, 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. With a negative alpha of -2.16, 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 primarily on equities that are traded in the United States.
Right now, 96.55% of this mutual fund's holdings are stocks, and these companies have an average market capitalization of $122.68 billion. The fund has the heaviest exposure to the following market sectors:
This fund's turnover is about 36%, so the fund managers are making fewer trades than the average comparable fund.
Expenses
As competition heats up in the mutual fund market, costs become increasingly important. Compared to its otherwise identical counterpart, a low-cost product will be an outperformer, all other things being equal. Thus, taking a closer look at cost-related metrics is vital for investors. In terms of fees, FEQIX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.62% compared to the category average of 1.05%. So, FEQIX is actually cheaper than its peers from a cost perspective.
This fund requires a minimum initial investment of $2,500, while there is no minimum for each subsequent investment.
Bottom Line
Overall, Fidelity Equity-Income Fund FEQIX has a high Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively similar performance, average downside risk, and lower fees, Fidelity Equity-Income Fund FEQIX looks like a great potential choice for investors right now.
This could just be the start of your research on FEQIX in the Large Cap Value 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. For analysis of the rest of your portfolio, make sure to visit Zacks.com for our full suite of tools which will help you investigate all of your stocks and funds in one place.