Any investors who are searching for Mutual Fund Equity Report funds should take a look at Vanguard Materials Index Admiral (VMIAX Quick QuoteVMIAX - 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 VMIAX. Since Vanguard Materials Index Admiral made its debut in January of 2004, VMIAX has garnered more than $966.60 million in assets. The fund's current manager, William Coleman, has been in charge of the fund since August of 2015.

Performance

Obviously, what investors are looking for in these funds is strong performance relative to their peers. VMIAX has a 5-year annualized total return of 7.64% and it sits 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 9.73%, 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 27.14%, the standard deviation of VMIAX over the past three years is 23.09%. The standard deviation of the fund over the past 5 years is 20.95% compared to the category average of 24.63%. This makes the fund less volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

Risk Factors

Investors should not forget about beta, an important way to measure a mutual fund's risk compared to the market as a whole. VMIAX has a 5-year beta of 1.12, 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. VMIAX has generated a negative alpha over the past five years of -3.84, demonstrating that managers in this portfolio find it difficult to pick securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.

Holdings

Exploring 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 largely on equities that are traded in the United States.

This fund is currently holding about 79.05% stock in stocks, which have an average market capitalization of $46.08 billion. The fund has the heaviest exposure to the following market sectors:

1. Industrial Cyclical
2. Non-Durable
3. Other

Expenses

For investors, taking a closer look at cost-related metrics is key, since costs are increasingly important for mutual fund investing. Competition is heating up in this space, and a lower cost product will likely outperform its otherwise identical counterpart, all things being equal. In terms of fees, VMIAX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.10% compared to the category average of 0.98%. From a cost perspective, VMIAX is actually cheaper than its peers.

While the minimum initial investment for the product is $100,000, investors should also note that each subsequent investment needs to be at least $1.

Bottom Line

For additional information on the Mutual Fund Equity Report 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 VMIAX too 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.