Best-Performing Fund Families

With the close of the first quarter, the 426 fund families again vie for the few spots atop our quarterly "ultra" fund family competition.

There are two paths to victory in this contest. The initial way an investment management firm can be considered an "ultra" fund family is to place as many funds as possible on our quarterly top-200 list of open-end funds. This list is being published in section III of our Spring 2008 edition of TheStreet.com Ratings Guide to Stock Mutual Funds.

For the third quarter in a row, bigger is proving to be better. The same two families raised the bar, securing even more mutual funds in the top 200 than last quarter. Three more Fidelity funds made the list for a total of 18 spots. Vanguard also upped its game to 15 top-200 list funds from nine last quarter.

Two other investment houses reached double digits. American Century Investments placed 13 funds, while ING Investments, a unit of ING GroepING had 11.

Honorable ultra-fund-family mention goes to Ivy/Waddell & ReedWDR with nine, GE Investment, a unit of General ElectricGE with eight, BlackRock with seven, as well as John Hancock, a unit of Manulife FinancialMFC, with five top-200 list funds.

BlackRock is 49%-owned by Merrill LynchMER, 34%-owned by PNC Financial Services GroupPNC and 17%-owned by BlackRock BLK employees and shareholders.

The second way we compare fund families is by breaking them into groups by size. This allows us to see which firms have the highest percentage of funds ranked in the top 30% of all open-end funds in comparison to other fund families of similar size. The top 30% represents overall investment grades of A+ do to B-. The middle 40% are fund grades of C+, C, and C-, with D+ and lower in the bottom 30%.

Jumping from eighth place at year's end to first place this quarter, The Hartford FundsHIG unseated the six-time ultra-fund family champion, American Funds, which fell to sixth.

MFS moved up two spots to grab second place with 163 of its 291 rated funds being graded B- or better. Alliance Bernstein, a unit of AxaAXA, with 52.7% top 30% funds, and T. Rowe PriceTROW with 52.1% ranked third and fourth respectively.

The fifth-place large, ultra-fund family is Ivy/Waddell & Reed, which would have ranked first and third on the 40 to 99 table if considered separately, as had previously been the case. Here's another recent article on that topic.

Fund Families With 100 or More Rated Funds
Fund Family Name	No. of Funds Rated	Top 30%	Middle 40%	Bottom 30%
Hartford Funds, The	249	57.0%	30.1%	12.9%
MFS	291	56.0%	27.1%	16.8%
Alliance Bernstein	368	52.7%	25.8%	21.5%
T. Rowe Price	117	52.1%	38.5%	9.4%
Ivy/Waddell & Reed Funds	136	49.3%	30.1%	20.6%
American Funds	211	48.3%	47.9%	3.8%
Van Kampen	150	44.0%	42.7%	13.3%
American Century Investments	170	43.5%	29.4%	27.1%
Fidelity Investments	624	42.1%	31.9%	26.0%
Vanguard	134	41.0%	44.8%	14.2%
Russell Funds	102	39.2%	43.1%	17.6%
Nationwide Funds	201	38.8%	26.9%	34.3%
BlackRock	218	38.1%	35.8%	26.1%
Columbia Funds	454	34.8%	52.9%	12.3%
JPMorgan Funds	237	34.6%	36.3%	29.1%
ING Investments, LLC	313	32.3%	44.4%	23.3%
Allianz Global Investors Fund Manag	127	31.5%	49.6%	18.9%
AIM Investments	166	30.7%	37.3%	31.9%
Morgan Stanley	183	30.1%	37.7%	32.2%
Wells Fargo Advantage Funds	218	29.8%	43.1%	27.1%
Franklin Templeton	192	29.7%	44.3%	26.0%
Prudential, JennisonDryden, Strategic Partners	142	29.6%	45.8%	24.6%
MainStay Funds	106	29.2%	38.7%	32.1%
RiverSource Investments	150	25.3%	47.3%	27.3%
Goldman Sachs	129	22.5%	48.1%	29.5%
Principal Financial Group	413	21.5%	46.7%	31.7%
DWS Scudder	179	20.7%	44.1%	35.2%
Dreyfus & Mellon Funds	250	20.0%	44.4%	35.6%
Putnam Funds	553	15.6%	51.7%	32.7%
OppenheimerFunds	200	14.5%	50.0%	35.5%
Rydex Funds	144	13.2%	18.8%	68.1%
MassMutual Funds	166	10.2%	57.2%	32.5%
Legg Mason	102	7.8%	44.1%	48.0%
Source: TheStreet.com Ratings

The best-performing fund family with 40 to 99 rated funds, with nearly half of its funds ranking in the top 30%, is Janus Fund. This fund family made a dramatic quarter-to-quarter improvement, increasing its top-30% showing to 47.5% from 38.1%. It climbed all the way up from tenth place.

Eaton VanceEV and GE Investment hold the second and third spots.

The 10 Best Fund Families With 40 to 99 Rated Funds
Fund Family Name	No. of Funds Rated	Top 30%	Middle 40%	Bottom 30%
Janus Fund	99	47.5%	36.4%	16.2%
Eaton Vance	85	47.1%	36.5%	16.5%
GE Investment	49	44.9%	44.9%	10.2%
GMO Funds	45	42.2%	28.9%	28.9%
State Farm	72	41.7%	41.7%	16.7%
Gabelli Funds	86	40.7%	32.6%	26.7%
PIMCO Funds	81	35.8%	33.3%	30.9%
Pacific Life Funds	90	35.6%	33.3%	31.1%
IDEX Funds	65	32.3%	46.2%	21.5%
Federated Investors	58	29.3%	46.6%	24.1%
Source: TheStreet.com Ratings

HSBC Asset ManagementHBC took first place among the smaller fund families, up from third place last quarter. First Eagle soared to second place, up from twelfth, with two-thirds of its rated funds in the top 30%.

An even more impressive move came from the third-place finisher, Vantagepoint Funds, as 10 more of its funds scored a B- rating or higher.

The 10 Best Fund Families With 10 to 39 Rated Funds
Fund Family Name	No. of Funds Rated	Top 30%	Middle 40%	Bottom 30%
HSBC Asset Mgmt	32	78.1%	12.5%	9.4%
First Eagle	15	66.7%	33.3%	0.0%
Vantagepoint Funds	27	55.6%	40.7%	3.7%
BARCLAY'S GLOBAL	11	54.5%	45.5%	0.0%
Diamond Hill Funds	11	54.5%	27.3%	18.2%
Thornburg Funds	19	52.6%	47.4%	0.0%
Dimensional Investment Group	27	51.9%	25.9%	22.2%
Kinetics Mutual Funds, Inc.	10	50.0%	40.0%	10.0%
Henderson Global Funds	12	50.0%	25.0%	25.0%
William Blair Funds	14	50.0%	21.4%	28.6%
Source: TheStreet.com Ratings

There are 291 fund families that have fewer than 10 rated open-end stock funds. Of these, only Julius Baer FundsJBHGF has four out of four rated funds in the top 30%.

The four fund families with three out of three funds in the top 30% are BHH Mutual Funds, Cullen Funds, Industry Leaders Funds and Jamestown Funds/LB&C.

For an explanation of our ratings, click here.