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

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On the lookout for a Sector - Precious Metal fund? Starting with American Century Global Gold Investor (BGEIX - Free Report) is one possibility. BGEIX bears a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 2 (Buy), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

Objective

BGEIX is classified in the Sector - Precious Metal segment by Zacks, an area full of potential. Sector - Precious Metal mutual funds normally invest in stocks focused on the mining and production of precious metals such as gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. Often times, stocks here trade as leveraged bets of the underlying commodity, so they are tied to the prices of the metal, and can be quite volatile, too.

History of Fund/Manager

BGEIX finds itself in the American Century family, based out of Kansas City, MO. Since American Century Global Gold Investor made its debut in August of 1988, BGEIX has garnered more than $295.74 million in assets. The fund's current manager, Yulin Long, has been in charge of the fund since May of 2016.

Performance

Investors naturally seek funds with strong performance. BGEIX has a 5-year annualized total return of -4.42% and it sits in the top third among its category peers. But if you are looking for a shorter time frame, it is also worth looking at its 3-year annualized total return of 11.6%, 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 BGEIX over the past three years is 36.53% compared to the category average of 14.49%. Over the past 5 years, the standard deviation of the fund is 36.75% compared to the category average of 14.04%. This makes the fund more volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

Risk Factors

Investors should always remember the downsides to a potential investment, and this segment carries some risks one should be aware of. BGEIX lost 33.92% in the most recent bear market and underperformed its peer group by 1.91%. These results could imply that the fund is a worse choice than its peers during a sliding market environment.

Nevertheless, with a 5-year beta of -0.11, 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. Over the past 5 years, the fund has a positive alpha of 2.86. This means that managers in this portfolio are skilled in picking 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, BGEIX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.66% compared to the category average of 1.36%. BGEIX is actually cheaper than its peers when you consider factors like cost.

This fund requires a minimum initial investment of $2,500, and each subsequent investment should be at least $50.

Bottom Line

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

For additional information on this product, or to compare it to other mutual funds in the Sector - Precious Metal, 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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