Top Hybrid Funds in April

Of the five types of hybrid mutual funds we track, the 19 convertible-security funds finished April with the highest average one-month return at 4.36%. The trailing four categories are ranked by the average one-month total return for each group.

The best performing convertible fund for April is the Franklin Convertible Securities AFISCX. This D+ rated fund gained 7.55% in one month, enough to pay back the front load of 5.75%.

The fund is apportioned to 63.8% corporate securities of companies like Microchip TechnologyMCHP, Best BuyBBY and VeriSignVRSN.

It's allocated 31.9% to preferred shares, including those of McMoRan ExplorationMMR, Avery DennisonAVY and EntergyETR.

The category in second place is global asset allocation, averaging 3.48% for the month. This is one of the most flexible types of mutual-fund categories, as it can generally choose among any of the classes of investment from anywhere around the world.

The C+ rated Purisima Total Return FundPURIX topped this group of 41 funds gaining 7.84% in April.

Unfortunately, as the fund is not sold to the public, the only way to invest in it is to be one of the smaller private clients of Fisher Investments.

A representative of Fisher said the fund has a current allocation of about 55% foreign and the remaining domestic. The firm considers the Morgan Stanley World Index as its internal benchmark for comparison.

The third-place category of domestic asset allocation is led by the TCW LifePlan Aggressive FundTGPGX.

The group averaged 3.46% while the individual fund showed a performance of 7.78% in April. This LifePlan fund invests in a portfolio of other TCW funds, including 37.99% TCW Large Cap Growth Fund TGLCX, 20.57% TCW Diversified Value Fund TGDVX, 11.88% TCW Growth Equities Fund TGGEX, 11.86% TCW Value Opportunities Fund TGVOX, 11.61% TCW Core Fixed Income Fund TGCFX, 6.52% TCW Relative Value Small Cap Fund TGOIX and 3.75% TCW Small Cap Growth FundTGSCX.

The net result is a highly diversified fund with 93% invested in U.S. securities.

Best Performing Open-End Hybrid Mutual Funds by Objective for April
Objective	Obj 1 Month Avg %	Fund (Ticker) Rating	Total Return 1 Month %	Total Return 3 Months %	Total Return 1 Year %
Convertible	4.36	Franklin Convertible Securities A (FISCX) D+	7.55	2.68	-4.49
Asset Allocation - Global	3.48	Purisima Total Return Fund (PURIX) C+	7.84	6.69	1.75
Asset Allocation - Domestic	3.46	TCW LifePlan Aggressive Fund (TGPGX) U	7.78	5.75	-1.41
Balanced - Global	3.12	New Covenant Balanced Growth (NCBGX) C+	3.36	-0.38	-2.92
Balanced - Domestic	3.04	CGM Mutual Fund (LOMMX) B+	11.88	8.38	38.30
Source: TheStreet.com Ratings

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