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Is AGDCX a Strong Bond Fund Right Now?

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If you've been stuck searching for Mutual Fund Bond funds, you might want to consider passing on by AB High Income Fund C (AGDCX - Free Report) as a possibility. AGDCX holds a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 4 (Sell), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

History of Fund/Manager

AGDCX is a part of the AllianceBernstein family of funds, a company based out of New York, NY. AB High Income Fund C debuted in February of 1994. Since then, AGDCX has accumulated assets of about $201.21 million, according to the most recently available information. The fund's current manager is a team of investment professionals.

Performance

Investors naturally seek funds with strong performance. This fund carries a 5-year annualized total return of -0.32%, and it sits in the bottom third among its category peers. Investors who prefer analyzing shorter time frames should look at its 3-year annualized total return of -1.59%, which places it in the bottom 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 16.12%, the standard deviation of AGDCX over the past three years is 14%. Looking at the past 5 years, the fund's standard deviation is 11.18% compared to the category average of 13.98%. This makes the fund less volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

AGDCX carries a beta of 0.11, meaning that the fund is less volatile than a broad market index of fixed income securities. With this in mind, it has a negative alpha of -0.1, which measures performance on a risk-adjusted basis.

Ratings

Investors should also consider a bond's rating, which is a grade ( 'AAA' to 'D' ) given to a bond that indicates its credit quality. With this letter scale in mind, AGDCX 's junk bond component-bonds rated 'BB' or below-is at 73.18%. This means that the fund has an average quality of BBB, and focuses on medium quality securities.

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, AGDCX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 1.61% compared to the category average of 0.98%. AGDCX is actually more expensive than its peers when you consider factors like cost.

This fund requires a minimum initial investment of $2,500, and each subsequent investment should be at least $50.

Bottom Line

Overall, AB High Income Fund C ( AGDCX ) has a low Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively weak performance, average downside risk, and higher fees, AB High Income Fund C ( AGDCX ) looks like a somewhat weak choice for investors right now.

This could just be the start of your research on AGDCXin the Mutual Fund Bond 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. For analysis of the rest of your portfolio, make sure to visit Zacks.com for our full suite of tools which will help you investigate all of your stocks and funds in one place.


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