Is Janus Henderson Global Life Science T (JAGLX) a Strong Mutual Fund Pick Right Now?
If you have been looking for Sector - Health funds, a place to start could be Janus Henderson Global Life Science T (JAGLX). JAGLX has a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 2 (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
JAGLX is a part of the Janus Fund family of funds, a company based out of Boston, MA. Janus Henderson Global Life Science T debuted in December of 1998. Since then, JAGLX has accumulated assets of about $1.24 billion, according to the most recently available information. The fund is currently managed by Andrew Acker who has been in charge of the fund since May of 2007.
Performance
Investors naturally seek funds with strong performance. This fund carries a 5-year annualized total return of 15.63%, 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 1.97%, 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. Compared to the category average of 10.13%, the standard deviation of JAGLX over the past three years is 16.37%. Looking at the past 5 years, the fund's standard deviation is 15.54% compared to the category average of 9.81%. 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, JAGLX lost 35.92% and outperformed its peer group by 3.04%. These results could imply that the fund is a better choice than its peers during a sliding market environment.
Nevertheless, with a 5-year beta of 0.97, the fund is likely to be as volatile as the market average. 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 positive alpha over the past 5 years of 3.46, which shows that managers in this portfolio are skilled in picking securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.
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, JAGLX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.92% compared to the category average of 1.31%. Looking at the fund from a cost perspective, JAGLX is actually cheaper than its peers.
While the minimum initial investment for the product is $2,500, investors should also note that 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. If you want to check out our stock reports as well, make sure to go to Zacks.com to see all of the great tools we have to offer, including our time-tested Zacks Rank.
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