Fidelity Extends Lead in Top-Rated Funds

BOSTON (TheStreet) -- Fidelity Investments increased the number of funds ranked in our third-quarter Top 200 Stock Mutual Funds list to 28 from 20. This biggest of 415 fund families with 662 rated funds earns its ninth consecutive "Ultra" Fund Family title.

Up from third place in June, the runner-up on our Top 200 list of A and A-plus rated funds, published in our Fall 2009 Guide to Stock Mutual Funds by Grey House Publishing, is Vanguard, with nine.

Honorable mentions go to Alliance Bernstein, a unit of Axa SA(AXA Quote); John Hancock, a division of Manulife Financial(MFC Quote); and Transamerica Funds, a subsidiary of Aegon NV(AEG Quote). They tied for third place, each with six unique funds among the top 200.

We also publish a more comprehensive review of the fund families in which size matters less than overall results.

For a fund family to be considered an "Ultra" Fund Family, a company needs to place the highest percentage of funds ranked in the top 30% of all open-end funds in comparison with other fund families of similar size. The top 30% represents overall investment grades of A-plus down to B-minus. The middle 40% carry fund grades of C-plus, C and C-minus. D-plus and lower fall into the bottom 30%.

In this "Ultra" Fund Family competition, Van Kampen, a unit of Morgan Stanley(MS Quote), wins for the second consecutive quarter by having a higher share of its portfolio of funds ranked in the top 30%, or "buy" range, than any of the other fund families with 100 or more rated funds. Van Kampen boosted the percentage of its 171 rated funds in the top category to 57% from the previous quarter's 45%.