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Is Matthews India Fund (MINDX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?

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Pacific Rim - Equity fund seekers should not consider taking a look at Matthews India Fund (MINDX - Free Report) at this time. MINDX possesses a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 5 (Strong Sell), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

Objective

MINDX is one of many Pacific Rim - Equity funds to choose from. Pacific Rim - Equity mutual funds typically invest in companies throughout the dominant export-focused markets of Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and Korea. Since Japan mutual funds are already popular in their own right, these Pacific funds will usually invest less than 10% of their assets in Japanese companies.

History of Fund/Manager

Matthews Asia is based in San Francisco, CA, and is the manager of MINDX. Matthews India Fund made its debut in October of 2005, and since then, MINDX has accumulated about $1.24 billion in assets, per the most up-to-date date available. Sharat Shroff is the fund's current manager and has held that role since June of 2006.

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 16.25%, and it sits 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 4.69%, 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. Over the past three years, MINDX's standard deviation comes in at 14.93%, compared to the category average of 11.39%. The standard deviation of the fund over the past 5 years is 16.6% compared to the category average of 11.01%. 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. In MINDX's case, the fund lost 66.29% in the most recent bear market and outperformed its peer group by 8.11%. This makes the fund a possibly better choice than its peers during a sliding market environment.

Nevertheless, investors should also note that the fund has a 5-year beta of 0.65, 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. Over the past 5 years, the fund has a positive alpha of 7.7. This means 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, MINDX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 1.07% compared to the category average of 1.46%. Looking at the fund from a cost perspective, MINDX is actually cheaper than its peers.

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

Bottom Line

Overall, Matthews India Fund ( MINDX ) has a low Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively strong performance, worse downside risk, and lower fees, Matthews India Fund ( MINDX ) looks like a somewhat weak choice for investors right now.

This could just be the start of your research on MINDXin the Pacific Rim - Equity category. Consider going to www.zacks.com/funds/mutual-funds for additional information about this fund, and all the others that we rank as well for additional information. If you are more of a stock investor, make sure to also check out our Zacks Rank, and our full suite of tools we have available for novice and professional investors alike.


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