Funds That Have Survived a Depression

If the economy falls into a depression -- as a growing chorus of pessimists have been predicting -- only nine open-end mutual funds and six closed-end funds can claim experience in surviving such a catastrophe.

TheStreet.com last February identified some funds that had checked into the world in the 1920s just in time to live through the economic misery of the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Fund names, management companies and investment philosophies have changed for most of the funds summarized in the adjoining table, but they can all claim birth in the 1920s.

The depression-surviving funds are still chugging along. Their major investments don't seem indicative of investment organizations that have been scared by doomsayers into storing cash and valuables in subterranean vaults.

Six of the eight open-end stock and balanced funds (DWS Core Plus Income(SCSBX) is classified as an investment-grade general bond fund) in the table outperformed the S&P 500 total return index last year.

The Philadelphia Fund(PHILX), which celebrated its 85th birthday a few weeks ago, doesn't seem to have been driven to the mattresses by the depression talk. Its top holdings tend to be solid firms, many of which dominate their markets. They include Procter & Gamble(PG), Coca-Cola(KO), Wal-Mart(WMT) and Kellogg(K).

Similarly, the soon-to-be-octogenarian Vanguard Wellington(VWELX) has cast its lot with blue chips such as AT&T(T), Chevron(CVX), General Electric(GE) and International Business Machines(IBM). VWELX, born July 1, 1929, leads the open-end funds in the table with an annualized total return of 4.49% over the past 10 years. Although the fund surrendered 22.30% in 2008, it led the group for the year and beat the S&P, which tumbled 37% during the year.