If you’ve been stuck searching for Target Date funds, consider Vanguard Target Retirement 2025 Fund (VTTVX) as a possibility. The fund does not have a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank, though we have been able to explore other metrics like performance, volatility, and cost. History of Fund/Manager VTTVX is a part of the Vanguard Group family of funds, a company based out of Malvern, PA. Vanguard Target Retirement 2025 Fund made its debut in October of 2003, and since then, VTTVX has accumulated about $73.27 billion in assets, per the most up-to-date date available. A team of investment professionals is the fund’s current manager. Performance Of course, investors look for strong performance in funds. This fund carries a 5-year annualized total return of 5.11%, and is 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 10.21%, 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. Over the past three years, VTTVX’s standard deviation comes in at 7.53%, compared to the category average of 7.18%. Looking at the past 5 years, the fund’s standard deviation is 9.74% compared to the category average of 9.53%. This makes the fund more volatile than its peers over the past half-decade. Risk Factors The fund has a 5-year beta of 0.6, so investors should note that 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. The fund has produced a negative alpha over the past 5 years of -3.41, 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, VTTVX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.08% compared to the category average of 0.33%. From a cost perspective, VTTVX is actually cheaper than its peers. Investors need to be aware that with this product, the minimum initial investment is $1,000; each subsequent investment needs to be at least $1. Fees charged by investment advisors have not been taken into consideration. Returns would be less if those were included. Bottom Line This could just be the start of your research on VTTVX in the Target Date 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. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Get Your Free (VTTVX): Fund Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research
