Yahoo Finance Is VTAPX a Strong Bond Fund Right Now?
If you're looking for a Mutual Fund Bond fund category, then a possible option is Vanguard Short Term Inflation Protected Security Index Advisor (VTAPX). While this fund is not tracked by the Zacks Mutual Fund Rank, we were able to examine other factors like performance, volatility, and cost.
History of Fund/Manager
VTAPX is a part of the Vanguard Group family of funds, a company based out of Malvern, PA. Since Vanguard Short Term Inflation Protected Security Index Advisor made its debut in October of 2012, VTAPX has garnered more than $19.64 billion in assets. The fund is currently managed by Joshua Barrickman who has been in charge of the fund since October of 2012.
Performance
Obviously, what investors are looking for in these funds is strong performance relative to their peers. VTAPX has a 5-year annualized total return of 3.13% 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 2.22%, which places it in the top 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 VTAPX over the past three years is 3.26% compared to the category average of 12.18%. The standard deviation of the fund over the past 5 years is 2.82% compared to the category average of 12.38%. This makes the fund less volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.
VTAPX carries a beta of 0.21, 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 1.59, which measures performance on a risk-adjusted basis.
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, VTAPX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.06% compared to the category average of 0.82%. From a cost perspective, VTAPX is actually cheaper than its peers.
This fund requires a minimum initial investment of $3,000, and each subsequent investment should be at least $1.
Fees charged by investment advisors have not been taken into considiration. Returns would be less if those were included.
Bottom Line
For additional information on the Mutual Fund Bond area of the mutual fund world, make sure to check out www.zacks.com/funds/mutual-funds. There, you can see more about the ranking process, and dive even deeper into VTAPX too 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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