This month’s Mutual Fund First Cut seeks out international stock funds open to new investors that have a consistent history of outperforming their peer group.

There are over 3,700 international stock funds in the AAII mutual fund universe. The first filter excluded just over 1,000 world funds that invest in both domestic and international stocks.

The screen then focused on consistent performance by requiring above-average one-, three-, five- and 10-year returns relative to their peers in each international fund category. To help take costs into consideration, the screen required that the fund’s expense ratio be below average for the fund’s category and excluded funds that charge a sales load. Mutual funds designated as institutional were excluded. Funds with special share classes or designated as leveraged or inverse were excluded as well.

Funds open to new investors and with a minimum initial investment of $50,000 or less made the First Cut. In total, 28 funds passed all of the filters; they are grouped by their international fund category and ranked by their one-year return. The passing table also lists the fund’s category risk index, which relates a fund’s volatility over the last three years to the average volatility of funds in the same category. Funds with a category risk index of 1.00 had average volatility within the category. 

This and all Mutual Fund First Cut screens, updated monthly, are available to A+ Investor subscribers here.

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