Yahoo Finance Is PHYZX a Strong Bond Fund Right Now?
If investors are looking at the Mutual Fund Bond fund category, PGIM High Yield Z (PHYZX) could be a potential option. PHYZX has a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 1 (Strong Buy), which is based on various forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.
History of Fund/Manager
PGIM is responsible for PHYZX, and the company is based out of Providence, RI. The PGIM High Yield Z made its debut in March of 1996 and PHYZX has managed to accumulate roughly $8.56 billion 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. PHYZX has a 5-year annualized total return of 2.96% and it sits in the middle third among its category peers. Investors who prefer analyzing shorter time frames should look at its 3-year annualized total return of 0.9%, which places it in the middle third during this time-frame.
It is important to note that the product's returns may not reflect all its expenses. Any fees not reflected would lower the returns. Total returns do not reflect the fund's [%] sale charge. If sales charges were included, total returns would have been lower.
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 PHYZX over the past three years is 7.79% compared to the category average of 13.33%. The fund's standard deviation over the past 5 years is 9.54% compared to the category average of 14.39%. This makes the fund less volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.
PHYZX carries a beta of 0.28, meaning that the fund is less volatile than a broad market index of fixed income securities. With this in mind, it has a positive alpha of 3.05, which measures performance on a risk-adjusted basis.
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, PHYZX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.53% compared to the category average of 0.98%. From a cost perspective, PHYZX is actually cheaper than its peers.
While the minimum initial investment for the product is $0, investors should also note that there is no minimum for each subsequent investment.
Fees charged by investment advisors have not been taken into considiration. Returns would be less if those were included.
Bottom Line
Overall, PGIM High Yield Z ( PHYZX ) has a high Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively similar performance, average downside risk, and lower fees, PGIM High Yield Z ( PHYZX ) looks like a good potential choice for investors right now.
This could just be the start of your research on PHYZXin the Mutual Fund Bond 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. Want to learn even more? We have a full suite of tools on stocks that you can use to find the best choices for your portfolio too, no matter what kind of investor you are.
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