Europe - Equity fund seekers should consider taking a look at DFA Continental Small Company I (DFCSX). DFCSX possesses a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 2 (Buy), which is based on various forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

Objective

DFCSX is one of many Europe - Equity funds to pick from, and generally, European funds offer slow growth that can provide great levels of stability. Europe - Equity mutual funds invest in stocks across the vast European continent, including Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain.

History of Fund/Manager

Dimensional is based in Austin, TX, and is the manager of DFCSX. DFA Continental Small Company I made its debut in April of 1988, and since then, DFCSX has accumulated about $766.82 million in assets, per the most up-to-date date available. Jed S. Fogdall is the fund's current manager and has held that role since February of 2010.

Performance

Obviously, what investors are looking for in these funds is strong performance relative to their peers. DFCSX has a 5-year annualized total return of 13.89% and is 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 9.1%, which places it in the bottom 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, DFCSX's standard deviation comes in at 20.06%, compared to the category average of 19.7%. The fund's standard deviation over the past 5 years is 20.02% compared to the category average of 20.98%. This makes the fund less volatile than its peers over the past half-decade.

Risk Factors

Investors should not forget about beta, an important way to measure a mutual fund's risk compared to the market as a whole. DFCSX has a 5-year beta of 0.96, which means it is likely to be less volatile than the market average. 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. DFCSX has generated a negative alpha over the past five years of -0.37, demonstrating that managers in this portfolio find it difficult to pick securities that generate better-than-benchmark returns.