Having trouble finding a Pacific Rim - Equity fund? Fidelity Pacific Basin (FPBFX Quick QuoteFPBFX - Free Report) is a potential starting point. FPBFX has a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 2 (Buy), which is based on various forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

Objective

The world of Pacific Rim - Equity funds is an area filled with options, such as FPBFX. Pacific Rim - Equity mutual funds usually invest in companies with a big presence in the export-focused markets of Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and Korea. These funds also invest less than 10% of their assets in Japanese companies since Japan mutual funds are incredibly popular.

History of Fund/Manager

Fidelity is based in Boston, MA, and is the manager of FPBFX. Fidelity Pacific Basin debuted in October of 1986. Since then, FPBFX has accumulated assets of about $747.85 million, according to the most recently available information. The fund is currently managed by Kirk Neureiter who has been in charge of the fund since June of 2019.

Performance

Investors naturally seek funds with strong performance. This fund in particular has delivered a 5-year annualized total return of 9.29%, and it sits in the top 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 1.07%, which places it in the middle third during this time-frame.

It is important to note that the product's returns may not reflect all its expenses. Any fees not reflected would lower the returns. Total returns do not reflect the fund's [%] sale charge. If sales charges were included, total returns would have been lower.

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 FPBFX over the past three years is 20.16% compared to the category average of 18.25%. Looking at the past 5 years, the fund's standard deviation is 18.54% compared to the category average of 18.25%. This makes the fund more volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

Risk Factors

With a 5-year beta of 0.77, the fund is likely to be less volatile than 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. The fund has produced a negative alpha over the past 5 years of -2.57, which shows 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, FPBFX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.91% compared to the category average of 0.85%. FPBFX is actually more expensive than its peers when you consider factors like cost.

While the minimum initial investment for the product is $0, investors should also note that there is no minimum for each subsequent investment.

Fees charged by investment advisors have not been taken into considiration. Returns would be less if those were included.

Bottom Line

Overall, even with its comparatively strong performance, average downside risk, and higher fees, Fidelity Pacific Basin ( FPBFX ) has a high Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and therefore looks a good potential choice for investors right now.

For additional information on the Pacific Rim - Equity 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 FPBFX too for additional information. If you want to check out our stock reports as well, make sure to go to Zacks.com to see all of the great tools we have to offer, including our time-tested Zacks Rank.