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Is T. Rowe Price Personal Strategy Income (PRSIX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?

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Having trouble finding an Allocation Balanced fund? T. Rowe Price Personal Strategy Income (PRSIX - Free Report) is a potential starting point. PRSIX carries a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 1 (Strong Buy), which is based on various forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

Objective

PRSIX is one of many Zacks' Allocation Balanced mutual funds to pick from. Allocation Balanced funds seek to invest in a balance of asset types, like stocks, bonds, and cash, though including precious metals or commodities is not unusual; these funds are mostly categorized by their respective asset allocation. Investors utilize Allocation Balanced funds as a way to get a good start with diversified mutual funds, as well as for core holdings in a portfolio of funds.

History of Fund/Manager

PRSIX finds itself in the T. Rowe Price family, based out of Baltimore, MD. T. Rowe Price Personal Strategy Income made its debut in July of 1994, and since then, PRSIX has accumulated about $1.02 billion in assets, per the most up-to-date date available. The fund is currently managed by Charles Shriver who has been in charge of the fund since May of 2011.

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 5.64%, 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 2.52%, 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. PRSIX's standard deviation over the past three years is 8.66% compared to the category average of 12.12%. The standard deviation of the fund over the past 5 years is 9.27% compared to the category average of 12.61%. This makes the fund less volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

Risk Factors

With a 5-year beta of 0.48, 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 -3.21, which shows that managers in this portfolio find it difficult to pick securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.

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, PRSIX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.38% compared to the category average of 0.81%. PRSIX is actually cheaper 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 $100.

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

Bottom Line

Overall, T. Rowe Price Personal Strategy Income ( PRSIX ) 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 good potential choice for investors right now.

For additional information on the Allocation Balanced 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 PRSIX 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.


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