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Is Janus Henderson Global Life Science T (JAGLX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?

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If you have been looking for Sector - Health funds, a place to start could be Janus Henderson Global Life Science T (JAGLX - Free Report) . JAGLX holds a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 1 (Strong Buy), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

Objective

We note that JAGLX is a Sector - Health fund, and this area is also loaded with various options. Sector - Health mutual funds give investors an opportunity to focus on one of the largest sectors of the American economy, healthcare. Funds in this category can include everything from for-profit hospitals to pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers.

History of Fund/Manager

Janus Fund is responsible for JAGLX, and the company is based out of Boston, MA. The Janus Henderson Global Life Science T made its debut in December of 1998 and JAGLX has managed to accumulate roughly $1.19 billion in assets, as of the most recently available information. Andrew Acker is the fund's current manager and has held that role since May of 2007.

Performance

Investors naturally seek funds with strong performance. This fund has delivered a 5-year annualized total return of 10.57%, and is in the top 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 9.59%, 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, JAGLX's standard deviation comes in at 15.07%, compared to the category average of 10.57%. Looking at the past 5 years, the fund's standard deviation is 16.37% compared to the category average of 10.8%. This makes the fund more volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

Risk Factors

One cannot ignore the volatility of this segment, however, as it is always important for investors to remember the downside to any potential investment. JAGLX lost 35.92% in the most recent bear market and underperformed comparable funds by 3%. These results could imply that the fund is a worse choice than its peers during a sliding market environment.

Investors should not forget about beta, an important way to measure a mutual fund's risk compared to the market as a whole. JAGLX has a 5-year beta of 1.01, which means it is likely to be as volatile as 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. The fund has produced a negative alpha over the past 5 years of -0.19, which shows that 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, JAGLX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.92% compared to the category average of 1.28%. From a cost perspective, JAGLX is actually cheaper than its peers.

This fund requires a minimum initial investment of $2,500, while there is no minimum for each subsequent investment.

Bottom Line

Overall, Janus Henderson Global Life Science T ( JAGLX ) has a high Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively strong performance, worse downside risk, and lower fees, Janus Henderson Global Life Science T ( JAGLX ) looks like a good potential choice for investors right now.

This could just be the start of your research on JAGLXin the Sector - Health 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. 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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