The next fund, Dodge & Cox International Stock fund, is a well known international stock offered by Dodge & Cox. The fund has been available for retail investor and institutional investor for the past decade. The fund performance has been great over the long term period. The following article will provide all the details about the fund information and performance in general. This Dodge & Cox International Stock fund is also part of Kiplinger’s 25 Best Mutual Funds.
Dodge & Cox International Stock (Ticker: DODFX)
While US companies have dominated the world economy for long time, international companies also provide additional value for world economy. The foreign companies provide about 55% contribution to world economy. These international companies can include companies in Europe (United Kingdom, German, France, Spain, Eastern Europe, etc), Japan, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, Emerging Markets (Brazil, China, India, Russia), and South East Asia countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore).Investing in these international companies stocks definitely will provide true representation of asset diversification. One of the ways to invest in these companies is investing through mutual fund. If you are interested in exchange-traded fund (ETF) or closed end fund (CEF), please check my future article.
The investment objective of Dodge & Cox International Stock fund is seeking for both long term principal growth and income growth. It generally invests mainly in a diversified portfolio of non-U.S. companies’ equity securities especially medium to large well established companies (based on standards of the applicable market).
There are at least three different foreign countries, including emerging markets. The majority investment can be in the form of common stocks, securities convertible into common stocks, preferred stocks and securities that has the right to purchase non-U.S. companies’ common stock. DODFX invests mainly in medium-to-large well established companies.
DODFX Fund Details
- Fund Inception Date: May 2001
- Ticker Symbol: DODFX
- CUSIP: 236206103
- Beta (3yr): 1.16
- Rank in category (2011): 81%
- Category: Foreign Large Value
- Distribution/ Yield: 1.97%
- Capital Gains: n/a
- Number of Years Up: 7 years
- Number of Years Down: 2 years
Since its inception in 2001, DODFX fund has experienced 7 years of positive return and 2 years of negative return. The best achievement in 1-year total return was obtained in 2003 (49.42%) whereas the worst performance was in 2008 (-46.69%). The fund has 4-stars rating from morning star with the year-to-date return of 2.52%. This top international stock fund has returned 12.39% over the past one year and 0.89% over the past three years. It has quite low expense ratio (0.65%) compared to the average in the category (1.39%).
Top Dodge & Cox Mutual Fund
Diana F. Strandberg, the vice president of Dodge & Cox, has personally managed this fund since its inception in 2001. The minimum balance to invest in this fund is $2,500 for brokerage account and $1,000 for IRA account. There is no 12b1 fee as well as no sales load. A minimum of $100 is needed for the subsequent investment. This best rated equity fund can be purchased from 85 brokerages, include Schwab Retail, T. Rowe Price, Vanguard, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, etc. There is only one class of fund for this Dodge & Cox fund.- Year 2017: 12.07% (YTD)
- Year 2016: 8.26%
- Year 2015: -11.35%
- Year 2014: 0.08%
- Year 2013: 26.31%
Investing in international stock fund involves greater risk than investing in domestic stock fund. The principal risks of investing are:
- Issue Risk
- Management Risk
- Equity Risk
- Market Risk
- Liquidity Risk
- Non US Investment Risk
- Currency Risk
Other Top International Stock Funds:
This Dodge & Cox International Stock Fund (DODFX) was part of Kiplinger's 25 best mutual funds before.
