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Is Fidelity Event Driven Opportunities Fund (FARNX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?

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Looking for an Index fund? You may want to consider Fidelity Event Driven Opportunities Fund as a possible option. FARNX has no Zacks Mutual Fund Rank, but we have been able to look into other metrics like performance, volatility, and cost.

History of Fund/Manager

Fidelity is responsible for FARNX, and the company is based out of Boston, MA. Fidelity Event Driven Opportunities Fund debuted in December of 2013. Since then, FARNX has accumulated assets of about $160.72 million, according to the most recently available information. Arvind Navaratnam is the fund's current manager and has held that role since December of 2013.

Performance

Investors naturally seek funds with strong performance. FARNX has a 5-year annualized total return of 3.59% and is in the middle third among its category peers. But if you are looking for a shorter time frame, it is also worth looking at its 3-year annualized total return of 5.23%, 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. The standard deviation of FARNX over the past three years is 15.47% compared to the category average of 7.75%. The standard deviation of the fund over the past 5 years is 15.36% compared to the category average of 8.86%. This makes the fund more 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.

Investors should not forget about beta, an important way to measure a mutual fund's risk compared to the market as a whole. FARNX has a 5-year beta of 1.05, which means it is likely to be more 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. The fund has produced a negative alpha over the past 5 years of -6.5, which shows that managers in this portfolio find it difficult to pick securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.

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, FARNX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 1.03% compared to the category average of 0.76%. From a cost perspective, FARNX is actually more expensive than its peers.

While the minimum initial investment for the product is $0, investors should also note that there is no minimum for each subsequent investment.

Bottom Line

Don't stop here for your research on Index funds. We also have plenty more on our site in order to help you find the best possible fund for your portfolio. Make sure to check out www.zacks.com/funds/mutual-funds for more information about the world of funds, and feel free to compare FARNX to its peers 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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