Van Eck International Investors Gold Fund (INIVX) Class A

Van Eck International Investors Gold Fund is another popular precious metals stock mutual fund. This Van Eck fund is part of sector equity mutual fund which focuses its investment in gold related companies. More review can be found as follows.

Van Eck International Investors Gold A (Ticker: INIVX)

The investment aim of Van Eck International Investors Gold fund is to seek long-term capital appreciation and its secondary consideration is to provide current income. This equity fund mainly invests >80% of assets in securities of companies engaged in gold-related activities, and in gold coins & bullion. It may invest small part of assets (<12.5%) in gold and silver coins, gold, silver, platinum and palladium bullion. The fund invests in open-end funds, closed-end funds and exchange-traded funds.

Fund Profile

• Fund Inception Date: February 10, 1956
• Ticker Symbol: INIVX
• CUSIP: 921075503
• Beta (3yr): 72.25
• Rank in category (YTD): 71%
• Category: Equity Precious Metals
• Yield: 1.68%
• Capital Gains: 0%
• Expense Ratio: 1.20%
• Net Assets: $ 1.37 billion
• Number of Years Up: 32 years
• Number of Years Down: 23 years
• Annual Turnover Rate: 24%

updated on 8/1/2012

This Precious Metals Equity fund has total net assets of $1.37 billion. Investors of this fund receive 1.68% dividend yield. This fund has been in the market for more than 50 years. The annual holdings turnover as of April 13, 2012 is 24%. It also has 1.20% expense ratio. The average expense ratio in Equity Precious Metals category is 1.39%. The management fee is 0.25% and the maximum sales charge is 5.75%.

INIVX fund

Based on the load adjusted returns, this precious metals mutual fund has returned 16.47% over the past 3-year, and 18.68% over the past 10-year. The best performance of this fund was occurred in 2002 with 90.84% return. The YTD return of this fund is -2.73%. It also has 3-year beta of 72.25. This equity mutual fund has been ranked with 3-stars and Neutral ranking from Morningstar.

This Van Eck fund is available for purchase through 93 brokerages, like Merrill Lynch, TD Ameritrade Inc, E Trade Financial, JPMorgan, Edward Jones, Schwab Institutional, Morgan Stanley Advisors, etc. Investor can buy this mutual fund with a minimum initial investment of $1,000. The other classes of this fund are Class C (IIGCX), Class I (INIIX) and Class Y (INIYX).

more: Best Precious Metals Stock Mutual Funds

The top 10 holdings as of March 2012 are Randgold Resources Ltd ADS (6.5%), Goldcorp Inc (6.2%), Osisko Mining Corp (6.2%), New Gold Inc (5.7%), Newcrest Mining Ltd (5.0%), Eldorado Gold Corp (4.4%), Royal Gold Inc (4.4%), Silver Wheaton Corp (4.2%), Anglo Gold Ashanti Ltd ADS (3.8%) and Tahoe Resources Inc (3.6%). They represent 50.0% of the total portfolio. The top country weightings are Canada (57.1%), United States (16.1%), Australia (8.8%) and United Kingdom (8.5%).

According to the fund’s prospectus, its investment risks are market risk, derivatives risk, commodities risk, foreign stocks risk, non-diversification risk, small and mid-cap risk, etc.

Advantages:

• Opportunity to invest in gold commodity sector
• Low portfolio turnover 
• It has an average rating

Disadvantages:

• High risk due to non-diversification
• Class A has a sales load

Disclosure: No Position