Oppenheimer International Bond Fund (OIBAX)

Oppenheimer International Bond Fund (OIBAX) is a popular world bond mutual fund. It invests mainly in developed and emerging markets countries debts. It provides income for investors.

Oppenheimer International Bond Fund (OIBAX)

The investment objective of Oppenheimer International Bond Fund is to provide total return. The mutual fund uses majority of its assets in foreign debt securities. This taxable bond fund invests in debt securities of issuers in both developed and emerging markets throughout the world. It invests mainly in debt securities of foreign government and corporate issuers. The fund may buy securities issued by companies of any size or market capitalization range and at times might emphasize securities of issuers in a particular capitalization range. It is non-diversified.

Fund Details

OIBAC fund

• Fund Inception Date: June 14, 1995
• Ticker Symbol: OIBAX
• CUSIP: 68380T103
• Beta (3yr): 0.34
• Rank in category (YTD): 31%
• Category: World Bond 
• Distribution: 3.68%
• Capital Gains: 0%
• Expense Ratio: 1.02%
• Net Assets: $ 13.1 billion
• Number of Years Up: 14 years
• Number of Years Down: 3 years
• Annual Turnover Rate: 111% 

Updated on May 24, 2013

Arthur P. Steinmetz and Sara J. Zervos are the fund’s managers. The fund has large assets of $13.1 billion. The annual expense ratio is 1.02%. There is a 12b1 fee of 0.25%. This class A fund has a 4.75% front-end sales load fee. The average expense fee ratio in World Bond category is 1.10%. This fund has a high yield of 3.68%. It also has annual holdings turnover of 111.0% as of April 24, 2013.

More: Top Performing Long Government Mutual Funds 2013

This Oppenheimer fund is rated with 4-stars and Neutral rating by Morningstar. This world bond fund has a YTD return of 1.74% as of May 2, 2013. This taxable bond fund has recorded a total of 14 years of positive return. The best 1-year total return was achieved in 2003 (25.87%). The fund has a 5-year average return of 4.80%. Based on the load adjusted returns, the fund’s performance is listed as below:

• 1-year: 1.87%
• 3-year: 4.25%
• 5-year: 3.78%
• 10-year: 8.67%

The other classes of this fund are Class B (OIBBX), Class C (OIBCX), Class Institutional (OIBIX), Class N (OIBNX) and Class Y (OIBYX). The Institutional Class has just been introduced to market in January 2012.. The minimum initial investment is $1,000 for brokerage account. For retirement account, the minimum initial purchase is $500. You can buy this mutual fund from 139 brokerages. Some of the brokers are E Trade Financial, Northwestern Mutual Inv Services, Protected Investors of America, Schwab Retail, Vanguard, Edward Jones, etc.

Taxable Bond Fund

The top issuers of this Oppenheimer fund as of March 2013 are Government of Japan (10.3%), Republic of Turkey (7.8%), Federal Republic of Brazil (4.4%), United Mexican States/ Mexico (4.2%), Government of Russia (3.2%), Government of France (3.0%), Republic of Italy (2.8%), Government of Australia (2.8%), United Kingdom Treasury (2.6%) and Institutional Money Market Fund (2.6%). The top ten issuers represent 42.8% of the total assets. The top regions are Americas – Emerging (24.4%) and Europe – Developed (20.4%).

According to the fund prospectus, the principal risks in investing in this fund includes:

• Main Risks of Debt Securities (Special Risks of Lower-Grade Securities, Fixed-Income Market Risks and Special Risks of Sovereign Debt); 
• Main Risks of Foreign Investing (Foreign Currency Risks and Special Risks of Developing and Emerging Markets);
• Main Risks of Small- and Mid-Sized Companies
• Main Risks of Derivatives Investments
• Risks of Non-Diversification

Disclosure: No Position