Four Funds That Consistently Beat the Market

The other broad-based international fund on the list, the First Eagle Overseas Fund (SGOVX Quote), is 28% committed to the U.K. and Western Europe, with 29% of its holdings in Japan, 13% in Asia ex Japan and only 2% in Latin America.

SGOVX's 20.97% retreat in 2008 was considerably milder than the 36.81% pounding suffered by the S&P. It was the fund's only losing year over the past decade.

The Matthews Asian Growth & Income Fund (MACSX Quote) has 26% of its portfolio committed to Hong Kong-domiciled investments, 13% in Singapore, 9% in Taiwan, 5% in South Korea and only 5% in the long-suffering Japanese market.

MACSX has managed to post positive annual returns for nine of the past 10 calendar years, even managing to keep its holders in the black during the 2000-02 bear market.

The Mutual European Fund (TEMIX Quote) concentrates its investments in the U.K. and Western Europe, with 18% of its holdings in France and 17 in Germany.

Although the four funds on the list deserve accolades for their consistency in outpacing the S&P, they are still each at least four years away from matching Bill Miller's signal achievement of besting the gauge for 14 consecutive years with his stewardship of the Legg Mason Value Trust (LMVTX Quote). Each of the four funds in the table lagged the S&P 500 in calendar 1998, meaning that the books must close on the year 2012 before any of the four funds can hope to match Miller's streak, which ended three years ago.

FOUR CONSISTENT S&P 500-BEATING STOCK FUNDS NAME Columbia International Value Fd Z First Eagle Overseas Fund A Matthews Asian Growth & Income Fd Mutual European A S&P 500 Composite Total Return Index TICKER EMIEX SGOVX MACSX TEMIX - TOTAL NET ASSETS (MIL.) $1,114.3 $3,521.2 $1,265.6 $794.9 - TheStreet.com REWARD GRADE B- A B+ A - TheStreet.com RISK GRADE C C+ C+ C+ - TheStreet.com OVERALL GRADE C+ B+ B B+ - INCEPTION DATE 12/27/1995 8/31/1993 9/12/1994 7/3/1996 - MIN. INITIAL PURCHASE $2,500 $2,500 $2,500 $1,000 - OVERALL EXPENSE RATIO (%) 1.09 1.14 1.16 1.34 - ANNUAL PORT. TURNOVER (%) 19.0 34.3 27.9 39.6 - TOTAL RETURN PERFORMANCE (%) CALENDAR YR 2008 -35.47 -20.97 -32.07 -32.68 -36.81 CALENDAR YR 2007 7.01 8.39 21.54 16.87 5.49 CALENDAR YR 2006 28.60 22.29 23.38 26.96 15.80 CALENDAR YR 2005 10.42 16.92 15.76 17.56 4.89 CALENDAR YR 2004 24.47 21.83 21.44 21.23 10.87 CALENDAR YR 2003 50.78 41.41 38.51 32.34 28.69 CALENDAR YR 2002 -17.60 12.53 9.01 -8.05 -22.10 CALENDAR YR 2001 -11.78 5.35 14.29 -5.05 -11.88 CALENDAR YR 2000 3.20 5.68 3.73 14.07 -9.11 CALENDAR YEAR 1999 52.65 33.19 48.88 46.05 21.05 Source: TheStreet.com Ratings & Bloomberg (Data as of 12/31/2008) For more information, check out an explanation of our ratings.