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

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Allocation Balanced fund seekers may want to consider taking a look at T. Rowe Price Personal Strategy Income (PRSIX - Free Report) . PRSIX holds a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 3 (Hold), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

Objective

PRSIX is classified in the Allocation Balanced segment by Zacks, which is an area full of possibilities. Here, investors are able to get a good head start with diversified mutual funds, and play around with core holding options for a portfolio of funds. Allocation Balanced funds look to invest across 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.

History of Fund/Manager

T. Rowe Price is based in Baltimore, MD, and is the manager of PRSIX. The T. Rowe Price Personal Strategy Income made its debut in July of 1994 and PRSIX has managed to accumulate roughly $1.91 billion in assets, as of the most recently available information. The fund's current manager, Charles M. Shriver, has been in charge of the fund since May of 2011.

Performance

Investors naturally seek funds with strong performance. This fund in particular has delivered a 5-year annualized total return of 6.67%, and it sits 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 5.58%, 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. PRSIX's standard deviation over the past three years is 5.16% compared to the category average of 7.04%. Over the past 5 years, the standard deviation of the fund is 5.11% compared to the category average of 6.94%. This makes the fund less volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

Risk Factors

It's always important to be aware of the downsides to any future investment, so one should not discount the risks that come with this segment. In PRSIX's case, the fund lost 27.29% in the most recent bear market and outperformed its peer group by 8.91%. This makes the fund a possibly better choice than its peers during a sliding market environment.

Nevertheless, with a 5-year beta of 0.46, the fund 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. With a negative alpha of -0.15, 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, PRSIX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.41% compared to the category average of 0.90%. Looking at the fund from a cost perspective, PRSIX is actually cheaper than its peers.

While the minimum initial investment for the product is $2,500, investors should also note that each subsequent investment needs to be at least $100.

Bottom Line

Overall, T. Rowe Price Personal Strategy Income has a neutral Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively similar performance, average downside risk, and lower fees, this fund looks like a somewhat average 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. Want to learn even more? We have a full suite of tools on stocks that you can use to find the best choices for your portfolio too, no matter what kind of investor you are.


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