15 important things you should know about Ariel Investments ARGFX mutual fund

Updated: September 09, 2020

Bull Case

3-year return above the benchmark
5-year return above the benchmark
10-year return above the benchmark
15-year return above the benchmark

Bear Case

High expense ratio
Sales load and/or distribution fees

Before we start: if you’re looking for ARGFX “stock” price, you can quickly find it out by visiting Finny and typing "ARGFX quote". If you’re looking for a quick scoop on ARGFX "stock" (price chart, key stats, buy or sell analysis and holdings), go to Finny and look for "ARGFX". You’ll get all this info in one place.

Are you looking to buy or sell ARGFX? Or perhaps you’re looking for ARGFX fact sheet, and learn about its alternatives? If so, you came to the right place.

In this ARGFX mutual fund review, we’ll address key questions our readers have been asking us about this fund, above and beyond what you can find in its prospectus, and on Morningstar or Yahoo Finance.

Here is what you’ll be able to find in this review:

Fact Sheet: ARGFX performance, returns, expense ratio, holdings and dividend yield;
Analysis: ARGFX buy or sell; the pros and cons of investing in ARGFX mutual fund;
Alternatives: other ETFs and mutual funds you should consider as alternatives to ARGFX.

And here is the list of questions we’ll answer:

Describe Ariel Investment Trust: Ariel Fund; Investor Class Shares (ARGFX).
What are ARGFX holdings?
What is ARGFX performance? What are ARGFX historical returns?
How many up and down years did ARGFX have historically?
What is ARGFX dividend yield?
What is ARGFX minimum initial investment amount?
What is ARGFX expense ratio?
Does ARGFX have any sales loads or 12b-1 distribution expenses?
What is ARGFX tax efficiency (tax-cost ratio)?
What is ARGFX beta? How would you assess ARGFX risk?
What is ARGFX Sharpe ratio?
What is ARGFX Finny Score? ARGFX buy or sell?
What are the pros of investing in ARGFX? What are ARGFX buy reasons?
What are the cons of investing in ARGFX? What are ARGFX sell reasons?

So let’s start. Scroll down to the question that interests you the most.

Fact Sheet

1. Describe Ariel Investment Trust: Ariel Fund; Investor Class Shares (ARGFX).

The Fund seeks long-term appreciation by investing primarily in equity securities of issuers which are undervalued, but demonstrate potential for growth. The Fund invests principally in companies with market capitalizations between $1 billion and $5 billion.

2. What are ARGFX top holdings?

ARGFX has 34 stock holdings and 0 bond holdings.

The top 10 holdings represent 39.35% of total assets. Here are the top holdings:

Name	Symbol	% Assets
KKR & Co Inc Ordinary Shares	KKR	5.03%
ViacomCBS Inc Class B	VIAC	4.47%
Zebra Technologies Corp	ZBRA	4.03%
Mattel Inc	MAT	3.94%
Stericycle Inc	SRCL	3.90%
Lazard Ltd Shs A	LAZ	3.87%
Northern Trust Corp	NTRS	3.61%
Adtalem Global Education Inc	ATGE	3.56%
Mohawk Industries Inc	MHK	3.56%
The Interpublic Group of Companies Inc	IPG	3.38%

3. What is ARGFX performance? What are ARGFX historical returns?

ARGFX has generated the following returns:

1-month return is 3.18%;
3-month return is 1.15%;
1-year return is -2.12%;
3-year return is 1.31%;
5-year return is 5.17%;
10-year return is 9.38%;
15-year return is 5.76%.

4. How many up and down years did ARGFX have historically?

In the last 10 years, ARGFX had 7 up years and 3 down years.

5. What is ARGFX dividend yield?

ARGFX yield is 0.84%.

6. What is ARGFX minimum initial investment amount?

ARGFX minimum initial investment amount is $3.00K.

7. What is ARGFX expense ratio?

ARGFX expense ratio is 1.01%. The expense ratio of a fund is the total percentage of fund assets used for administrative, management, and all other expenses.

8. Does ARGFX have any sales loads or 12b-1 distribution expenses?

ARGFX 12b-1 distribution fee is 0.25. ARGFX front-end sales load is 0. ARGFX back-end sales load is 0.

9. What is ARGFX tax efficiency (tax-cost ratio)?

1-year ax cost ratio is 1.53%;
3-year ax cost ratio is 1.8%.

10. What is ARGFX beta? How would you assess ARGFX risk?

3-year beta is 1.44;
5-year beta is 1.44;
10-year beta is 1.46.

11. What is ARGFX Sharpe ratio?

3-year Sharpe ratio is -0.02;
5-year Sharpe ratio is 0.12;
10-year Sharpe ratio is 0.53.

Analysis

12. What is Finny Score? buy or sell?

Finny Score is 67. Our quantitative analysis shows 4 reasons to buy and 2 reasons to sell it, resulting in the Finny Score of 67.

13. What are the pros of investing in ARGFX? What are ARGFX buy reasons?

The following are ARGFX strengths from our perspective:

ARGFX 3-year return is 1.31%, which is higher than the 3-year return of the benchmark index (Russell 2500 Value TR USD), -0.04%.
ARGFX 5-year return is 5.17%, which is in line with the 5-year return of the benchmark index (Russell 2500 Value TR USD), 5.23%.
ARGFX 10-year return is 9.38%, which is higher than the 10-year return of the benchmark index (Russell 2500 Value TR USD), 8.81%.
ARGFX 15-year return is 5.76%, which is in line with the 15-year return of the benchmark index (Russell 2500 Value TR USD), 6.06%.

14. What are the cons of investing in ARGFX? What are ARGFX negatives?

The following are ARGFX weaknesses from our perspective:

ARGFX expense ratio is 1.01%, which is not negligible. Is the fund expensive to you, and does it align to your investment strategy?
Warning: this fund has a 12b1 sales fee. The maximum 12b1 fee is 0.25%. A 12b-1 fee is an annual marketing or distribution fee on a mutual fund.

In the ARGFX review, we covered ARGFX key stats (return, performance, yield, expense ratio, and holdings), buy and sell analysis, and alternative investments. If this review was helpful to you, feel free to check out other mutual fund and ETF reviews.