Any investors hoping to find a Non US – Equity fund could think about starting with Dodge & Cox International Stock (DODFX). DODFX holds a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 2 (Buy), which is based on various forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.
DODFX is classified in the Non US – Equity area by Zacks, and this segment is full of potential. Non US – Equity funds focus their investments on companies outside of the United States, which is an important distinction since global mutual funds tend to keep a sizable portion of their portfolio based in the United States. Most of these funds will allocate across emerging and developed markets, and can often extend across cap levels too.
Dodge & Cox is based in San Francisco, CA, and is the manager of DODFX. The Dodge & Cox International Stock made its debut in May of 2001 and DODFX has managed to accumulate roughly $39.19 billion in assets, as of the most recently available information. The fund is currently managed by a team of investment professionals.
Obviously, what investors are looking for in these funds is strong performance relative to their peers. This fund has delivered a 5-year annualized total return of 7.11%, 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 4.71%, 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 DODFX over the past three years is 17.25% compared to the category average of 15.62%. Looking at the past 5 years, the fund’s standard deviation is 20.85% compared to the category average of 17.24%. This makes the fund more volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.
Investors should note that the fund has a 5-year beta of 0.91, which means it is hypothetically less volatile than the market at large. 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. With a negative alpha of -5.41, managers in this portfolio find it difficult to pick securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.