If you've been stuck searching for Non US - Equity funds, consider Fidelity Emerging Markets (FEMKX) as a possibility. FEMKX bears a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 2 (Buy), which is based on various forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

Objective

FEMKX 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.

History of Fund/Manager

Fidelity is responsible for FEMKX, and the company is based out of Boston, MA. Fidelity Emerging Markets debuted in November of 1990. Since then, FEMKX has accumulated assets of about $4.57 billion, according to the most recently available information. John Dance is the fund's current manager and has held that role since February of 2019.

Performance

Obviously, what investors are looking for in these funds is strong performance relative to their peers. FEMKX has a 5-year annualized total return of 6.99% and is 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 -3.72%, 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, FEMKX's standard deviation comes in at 19.65%, compared to the category average of 0%. The fund's standard deviation over the past 5 years is 19.5% compared to the category average of 41%. This makes the fund less volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

Risk Factors

Investors should note that the fund has a 5-year beta of 0.79, so it is likely going to be 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. FEMKX has generated a negative alpha over the past five years of -4.75, demonstrating that managers in this portfolio find it difficult to pick securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.