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Is Vanguard Target Retirement 2025 Fund (VTTVX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?
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Have you been searching for a Target Date fund? You might want to begin with Vanguard Target Retirement 2025 Fund (VTTVX - Free Report) . While this fund is not tracked by the Zacks Mutual Fund Rank, we were able to examine other factors like performance, volatility, and cost.
History of Fund/Manager
Vanguard Group is based in Malvern, PA, and is the manager of VTTVX. The Vanguard Target Retirement 2025 Fund made its debut in October of 2003 and VTTVX has managed to accumulate roughly $44.15 billion in assets, as of the most recently available information. The fund's current manager, William A. Coleman, has been in charge of the fund since February of 2013.
Performance
Investors naturally seek funds with strong performance. This fund carries a 5-year annualized total return of 6.4%, and it sits in the top third among its category peers. Investors who prefer analyzing shorter time frames should look at its 3-year annualized total return of 7.77%, 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. Compared to the category average of 8.23%, the standard deviation of VTTVX over the past three years is 7.15%. The fund's standard deviation over the past 5 years is 7.36% compared to the category average of 8.38%. This makes the fund less volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.
Risk Factors
Investors should always remember the downsides to a potential investment, and this segment carries some risks one should be aware of. VTTVX lost 42.49% in the most recent bear market and outperformed its peer group by 1%. This might suggest that the fund is a better choice than its peers during a bear market.
Even still, the fund has a 5-year beta of 0.59, so investors should note that it is hypothetically less volatile than the market at large. 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. The fund has produced a negative alpha over the past 5 years of -0.44, which shows that managers in this portfolio find it difficult to pick 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, VTTVX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.09% compared to the category average of 0.47%. So, VTTVX is actually cheaper than its peers from a cost perspective.
While the minimum initial investment for the product is $1,000, investors should also note that each subsequent investment needs to be at least $1.
Bottom Line
Want even more information about VTTVX? Then go over to Zacks.com and check out our mutual fund comparison tool, and all of the other great features that we have to help you with your mutual fund analysis for additional information. Zacks provides a full suite of tools to help you analyze your portfolio - both funds and stocks - in the most efficient way possible.
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Is Vanguard Target Retirement 2025 Fund (VTTVX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?
Have you been searching for a Target Date fund? You might want to begin with Vanguard Target Retirement 2025 Fund (VTTVX - Free Report) . While this fund is not tracked by the Zacks Mutual Fund Rank, we were able to examine other factors like performance, volatility, and cost.
History of Fund/Manager
Vanguard Group is based in Malvern, PA, and is the manager of VTTVX. The Vanguard Target Retirement 2025 Fund made its debut in October of 2003 and VTTVX has managed to accumulate roughly $44.15 billion in assets, as of the most recently available information. The fund's current manager, William A. Coleman, has been in charge of the fund since February of 2013.
Performance
Investors naturally seek funds with strong performance. This fund carries a 5-year annualized total return of 6.4%, and it sits in the top third among its category peers. Investors who prefer analyzing shorter time frames should look at its 3-year annualized total return of 7.77%, 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. Compared to the category average of 8.23%, the standard deviation of VTTVX over the past three years is 7.15%. The fund's standard deviation over the past 5 years is 7.36% compared to the category average of 8.38%. This makes the fund less volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.
Risk Factors
Investors should always remember the downsides to a potential investment, and this segment carries some risks one should be aware of. VTTVX lost 42.49% in the most recent bear market and outperformed its peer group by 1%. This might suggest that the fund is a better choice than its peers during a bear market.
Even still, the fund has a 5-year beta of 0.59, so investors should note that it is hypothetically less volatile than the market at large. 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. The fund has produced a negative alpha over the past 5 years of -0.44, which shows that managers in this portfolio find it difficult to pick 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, VTTVX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.09% compared to the category average of 0.47%. So, VTTVX is actually cheaper than its peers from a cost perspective.
While the minimum initial investment for the product is $1,000, investors should also note that each subsequent investment needs to be at least $1.
Bottom Line
Want even more information about VTTVX? Then go over to Zacks.com and check out our mutual fund comparison tool, and all of the other great features that we have to help you with your mutual fund analysis for additional information. Zacks provides a full suite of tools to help you analyze your portfolio - both funds and stocks - in the most efficient way possible.