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Is Thrivent Aggressive Allocation A (TAAAX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?
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If investors are looking at the Allocation Balanced fund category, Thrivent Aggressive Allocation A (TAAAX - Free Report) could be a potential option. TAAAX has a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 1 (Strong Buy), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.
Objective
TAAAX 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
Thrivent is based in Appleton, WI, and is the manager of TAAAX. The Thrivent Aggressive Allocation A made its debut in June of 2005 and TAAAX has managed to accumulate roughly $879.60 million 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 carries a 5-year annualized total return of 10.36%, and is in the top third among its category peers. Investors who prefer analyzing shorter time frames should look at its 3-year annualized total return of 8.44%, which places it in the top 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. The standard deviation of TAAAX over the past three years is 10.21% compared to the category average of 7.84%. Looking at the past 5 years, the fund's standard deviation is 9.73% compared to the category average of 7.75%. This makes the fund more volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.
Risk Factors
Investors cannot discount the risks to this segment though, as it is always important to remember the downside for any potential investment. In the most recent bear market, TAAAX lost 49.51% and underperformed its peer group by 13.33%. This might suggest that the fund is a worse choice than its peers during a bear market.
Nevertheless, investors should also note that the fund has a 5-year beta of 0.95, 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. The fund has produced a negative alpha over the past 5 years of -1.67, which shows that managers in this portfolio find it difficult to pick securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.
Holdings
Exploring the equity holdings of a mutual fund is also a valuable exercise. This can show us how the manager is applying their stated methodology, as well as if there are any inherent biases in their approach. For this particular fund, the focus is primarily on equities that are traded in the United States.
Currently, this mutual fund is holding 77.29% stock in stocks, with an average market capitalization of $94.36 billion. The fund has the heaviest exposure to the following market sectors:
Finance
Other
This fund's turnover is about 59%, so the fund managers are making fewer trades than the average comparable fund.
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, TAAAX is a load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.92% compared to the category average of 0.89%. From a cost perspective, TAAAX is actually more expensive than its peers.
Investors should also note that the minimum initial investment for the product is $2,000 and that each subsequent investment needs to be at $50.
Bottom Line
Overall, Thrivent Aggressive Allocation A has a high Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively strong performance, average downside risk, and higher 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 TAAAX too 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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Is Thrivent Aggressive Allocation A (TAAAX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?
If investors are looking at the Allocation Balanced fund category, Thrivent Aggressive Allocation A (TAAAX - Free Report) could be a potential option. TAAAX has a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 1 (Strong Buy), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.
Objective
TAAAX 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
Thrivent is based in Appleton, WI, and is the manager of TAAAX. The Thrivent Aggressive Allocation A made its debut in June of 2005 and TAAAX has managed to accumulate roughly $879.60 million 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 carries a 5-year annualized total return of 10.36%, and is in the top third among its category peers. Investors who prefer analyzing shorter time frames should look at its 3-year annualized total return of 8.44%, which places it in the top 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. The standard deviation of TAAAX over the past three years is 10.21% compared to the category average of 7.84%. Looking at the past 5 years, the fund's standard deviation is 9.73% compared to the category average of 7.75%. This makes the fund more volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.
Risk Factors
Investors cannot discount the risks to this segment though, as it is always important to remember the downside for any potential investment. In the most recent bear market, TAAAX lost 49.51% and underperformed its peer group by 13.33%. This might suggest that the fund is a worse choice than its peers during a bear market.
Nevertheless, investors should also note that the fund has a 5-year beta of 0.95, 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. The fund has produced a negative alpha over the past 5 years of -1.67, which shows that managers in this portfolio find it difficult to pick securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.
Holdings
Exploring the equity holdings of a mutual fund is also a valuable exercise. This can show us how the manager is applying their stated methodology, as well as if there are any inherent biases in their approach. For this particular fund, the focus is primarily on equities that are traded in the United States.
Currently, this mutual fund is holding 77.29% stock in stocks, with an average market capitalization of $94.36 billion. The fund has the heaviest exposure to the following market sectors:
This fund's turnover is about 59%, so the fund managers are making fewer trades than the average comparable fund.
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, TAAAX is a load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.92% compared to the category average of 0.89%. From a cost perspective, TAAAX is actually more expensive than its peers.
Investors should also note that the minimum initial investment for the product is $2,000 and that each subsequent investment needs to be at $50.
Bottom Line
Overall, Thrivent Aggressive Allocation A has a high Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively strong performance, average downside risk, and higher 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 TAAAX too 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.