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Is Fidelity Magellan (FMAGX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?

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If investors are looking at the Mutual Fund Equity Report fund category, Fidelity Magellan (FMAGX - Free Report) could be a potential option. FMAGX holds 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 FMAGX. The Fidelity Magellan made its debut in May of 1963 and FMAGX has managed to accumulate roughly $22.81 billion in assets, as of the most recently available information. Sammy Simnegar is the fund's current manager and has held that role since February of 2019.

Performance

Obviously, what investors are looking for in these funds is strong performance relative to their peers. This fund carries a 5-year annualized total return of 8.88%, 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 8.18%, 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 FMAGX over the past three years is 22.26% compared to the category average of 20%. Looking at the past 5 years, the fund's standard deviation is 19.66% compared to the category average of 17.65%. This makes the fund more volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

Risk Factors

With a 5-year beta of 1.02, the fund is likely to be as volatile as the market average. 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. With a negative alpha of -1.39, 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, FMAGX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.68% compared to the category average of 0.99%. So, FMAGX is actually cheaper than its peers from a cost perspective.

Investors need to be aware that with this product, the minimum initial investment is $0; each subsequent investment has no minimum amount.

Bottom Line

Overall, Fidelity Magellan ( FMAGX ) has a high Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively similar performance, average downside risk, and lower fees, this fund looks like a great potential choice for investors right now.

This could just be the start of your research on FMAGXin the Mutual Fund Equity Report 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. 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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