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

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If you have been looking for Sector - Real Estate funds, a place to start could be Fidelity Real Estate Investment (FRESX - Free Report) . FRESX carries a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 1 (Strong Buy), which is based on various forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

Objective

FRESX is one of many Sector - Real Estate funds to choose from. Sector - Real Estate mutual funds are known to invest in real estate investment trusts (REITs). A popular income vehicle thanks to its taxation rules, a REIT is required to pay out at least 90% of its income annually to avoid double taxation. This technique makes securities in these funds high dividend players, and even bond-like in some instances, though their risk is similar to equities.

History of Fund/Manager

Fidelity is responsible for FRESX, and the company is based out of Boston, MA. Since Fidelity Real Estate Investment made its debut in November of 1986, FRESX has garnered more than $3.10 billion in assets. The fund's current manager, Steve Buller, has been in charge of the fund since December of 1997.

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 2.26%, and it sits 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 10.1%, 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. Compared to the category average of 11.88%, the standard deviation of FRESX over the past three years is 15.73%. The fund's standard deviation over the past 5 years is 18.47% compared to the category average of 13.79%. This makes the fund more volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

Risk Factors

With a 5-year beta of 0.93, 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. FRESX's 5-year performance has produced a negative alpha of -8.4, which means 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 0.62% compared to the category average of 0.95%. 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.

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

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, this fund looks like a good potential choice for investors right now.

For additional information on the Sector - Real Estate 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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