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Is Fidelity Real Estate Investment (FRESX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?

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If you've been stuck searching for Mutual Fund Equity Report funds, consider Fidelity Real Estate Investment (FRESX - Free Report) as a possibility. FRESX has a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 1 (Strong Buy), which is based on various forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

History of Fund/Manager

FRESX is a part of the Fidelity family of funds, a company based out of Boston, MA. Fidelity Real Estate Investment debuted in November of 1986. Since then, FRESX has accumulated assets of about $3.03 billion, according to the most recently available information. Steve Buller is the fund's current manager and has held that role since December of 1997.

Performance

Of course, investors look for strong performance in funds. This fund has delivered a 5-year annualized total return of 6.82%, 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 3.6%, 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 FRESX over the past three years is 22.88% compared to the category average of 23.19%. The fund's standard deviation over the past 5 years is 19.62% compared to the category average of 19.72%. This makes the fund less volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

Risk Factors

Investors should note that the fund has a 5-year beta of 0.87, which means it is hypothetically less volatile than the market at large. 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. Over the past 5 years, the fund has a negative alpha of -1.27. This means 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, FRESX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.71% compared to the category average of 1.19%. So, FRESX 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 Real Estate Investment ( FRESX ) has a high Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively similar performance, average downside risk, and lower fees, Fidelity Real Estate Investment ( FRESX ) looks like a great potential choice for investors right now.

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 FRESX 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.


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