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Is Fidelity Select Health Care Services (FSHCX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?

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If you have been looking for Sector - Health funds, a place to start could be Fidelity Select Health Care Services (FSHCX - Free Report) . FSHCX carries a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 1 (Strong Buy), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

Objective

Zacks categorizes FSHCX as Sector - Health, a segment packed with options. Sector - Health mutual funds offer investors a focus on the healthcare industry, one of the largest sectors in the American economy. These funds can include everything from pharmaceutical companies to medical device manufacturers and for-profit hospitals.

History of Fund/Manager

Fidelity is responsible for FSHCX, and the company is based out of Boston, MA. Fidelity Select Health Care Services debuted in June of 1986. Since then, FSHCX has accumulated assets of about $779.25 million, according to the most recently available information. The fund's current manager, Justin Segalini, has been in charge of the fund since January of 2016.

Performance

Investors naturally seek funds with strong performance. This fund has delivered a 5-year annualized total return of 15.8%, and it sits in the top 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 6.76%, 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. Over the past three years, FSHCX's standard deviation comes in at 13.88%, compared to the category average of 17.51%. Looking at the past 5 years, the fund's standard deviation is 12.6% compared to the category average of 16.54%. This makes the fund less volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

Risk Factors

One cannot ignore the volatility of this segment, however, as it is always important for investors to remember the downside to any potential investment. In FSHCX's case, the fund lost 49.42% in the most recent bear market and underperformed its peer group by 16.55%. This makes the fund a possibly worse choice than its peers during a sliding market environment.

Investors should not forget about beta, an important way to measure a mutual fund's risk compared to the market as a whole. FSHCX has a 5-year beta of 0.81, which means it is likely to be less volatile than the market average. Another factor to consider is alpha, as it reflects a portfolio's performance on a risk-adjusted basis relative to a benchmark-in this case, the S&P 500. The fund has produced a positive alpha over the past 5 years of 5.04, which shows that managers in this portfolio are skilled in picking securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.

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, FSHCX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.77% compared to the category average of 1.30%. From a cost perspective, FSHCX is actually cheaper than its peers.

Investors need to be aware that with this product, the minimum initial investment is $2,500; each subsequent investment has no minimum amount.

Bottom Line

Overall, Fidelity Select Health Care Services has a high Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively strong performance, average downside risk, and lower fees, Fidelity Select Health Care Services looks like a good potential choice for investors right now.

Your research on the Sector - Health segment doesn't have to stop here. You can check out all the great mutual fund tools we have to offer by going to www.zacks.com/funds/mutual-funds to see the additional features we offer as well for additional information. If you want to check out our stock reports as well, make sure to go to Zacks.com to see all of the great tools we have to offer, including our time-tested Zacks Rank.


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