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Is American Century Global Gold Investor (BGEIX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?

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Sector - Precious Metal fund seekers should consider taking a look at American Century Global Gold Investor (BGEIX - Free Report) . BGEIX bears a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 2 (Buy), which is based on various forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

Objective

We note that BGEIX is a Sector - Precious Metal option, and this area is loaded with different options. Sector - Precious Metal funds typically invest in companies that are involved in the mining and production of precious metals like gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. Because stocks in this environment often trade as leveraged bets of the underlying commodity--they are tied to the prices of the metal--these equities tend to be volatile.

History of Fund/Manager

American Century is based in Kansas City, MO, and is the manager of BGEIX. American Century Global Gold Investor debuted in August of 1988. Since then, BGEIX has accumulated assets of about $1.47 billion, according to the most recently available information. A team of investment professionals is the fund's current manager.

Performance

Investors naturally seek funds with strong performance. This fund in particular has delivered a 5-year annualized total return of 25.61%, 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 52.89%, 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. BGEIX's standard deviation over the past three years is 40.42% compared to the category average of 15.98%. The fund's standard deviation over the past 5 years is 38.16% compared to the category average of 17.1%. This makes the fund more volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

Risk Factors

Investors should note that the fund has a 5-year beta of 0.7, which means it is hypothetically less volatile than the market at large. 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. BGEIX has generated a positive alpha over the past five years of 20.3, demonstrating that managers in this portfolio are skilled in picking securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.

Expenses

For investors, taking a closer look at cost-related metrics is key, since costs are increasingly important for mutual fund investing. Competition is heating up in this space, and a lower cost product will likely outperform its otherwise identical counterpart, all things being equal. In terms of fees, BGEIX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.66% compared to the category average of 1.03%. So, BGEIX is actually cheaper than its peers from a cost perspective.

While the minimum initial investment for the product is $2,500, investors should also note that each subsequent investment needs to be at least $50.

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

Bottom Line

Overall, American Century Global Gold Investor ( BGEIX ) has a high Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively similar performance, worse downside risk, and lower fees, this fund looks like a good potential choice for investors right now.

For additional information on the Sector - Precious Metal 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 BGEIX too for additional information. And don't forget, Zacks has all of your needs covered on the equity side too! Make sure to check out Zacks.com for more information on our screening capabilities, Rank, and all our articles as well.

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