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Is American Funds EuroPacific Growth R6 (RERGX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?

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Non US - Equity fund seekers may want to consider taking a look at American Funds EuroPacific Growth R6 (RERGX - Free Report) . RERGX possesses a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 3 (Hold), which is based on various forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

Objective

Zacks categorizes RERGX as Non US - Equity, a segment stacked high with options. Non US - Equity mutual funds like to invest in companies outside of the United States, an important characteristic since global mutual funds are known to keep a good portion of their portfolio stateside. These kinds of funds can often extend across all cap levels, and will typically allocate their investments between emerging and developed markets.

History of Fund/Manager

RERGX finds itself in the American Funds family, based out of Los Angeles, CA. The American Funds EuroPacific Growth R6 made its debut in May of 2009 and RERGX has managed to accumulate roughly $69 billion in assets, as of the most recently available information. The fund's current manager is a team of investment professionals.

Performance

Obviously, what investors are looking for in these funds is strong performance relative to their peers. This fund has delivered a 5-year annualized total return of 5.59%, and is in the middle third among its category peers. Investors who prefer analyzing shorter time frames should look at its 3-year annualized total return of 2.17%, 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. RERGX's standard deviation over the past three years is 17.4% compared to the category average of 14.69%. Looking at the past 5 years, the fund's standard deviation is 18.76% compared to the category average of 15.59%. This makes the fund more volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

Risk Factors

Investors should not forget about beta, an important way to measure a mutual fund's risk compared to the market as a whole. RERGX has a 5-year beta of 0.92, which means it is likely to be less volatile than the market average. 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. RERGX has generated a negative alpha over the past five years of -7.28, demonstrating 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, RERGX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.47% compared to the category average of 0.95%. So, RERGX is actually cheaper than its peers from a cost perspective.

Investors should also note that the minimum initial investment for the product is $250 and that each subsequent investment needs to be at $50

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

Bottom Line

Overall, American Funds EuroPacific Growth R6 ( RERGX ) has a neutral Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively similar performance, average downside risk, and lower fees, American Funds EuroPacific Growth R6 ( RERGX ) looks like a somewhat average choice for investors right now.

For additional information on this product, or to compare it to other mutual funds in the Non US - Equity, make sure to go to www.zacks.com/funds/mutual-funds 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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