Retirement Funds Snag Highest Ratings

TSC Ratings provides exclusive stock, ETF and mutual fund ratings and commentary based on award-winning, proprietary tools. Its "safety first" approach to investing aims to reduce risk while seeking solid outperformance on a total return basis.

Eight mutual funds that recently garnered "buy" ratings are vying for the chance to manage the nest eggs of millions of investors in retirement or those who will be in the next decade.

The funds use flexible-portfolio or asset-allocation approaches by purchasing open-end mutual funds, exchange traded funds or stocks.

TheStreet.com Ratings, in all, initiated coverage of 67 open-end mutual funds that accrued a track record of three years of risk and performance data by the end of May 2009.

The JPMorgan Smart Retirement Income Fund A(JSRAX Quote) invests in other JPMorgan funds. With 15 equity funds, five fixed-income funds and one money-market fund, JPMorgan Smart Retirement Income Fund puts 56% of its assets in fixed income, 36% in equities and 8.2% in money-market investments.

Three other newly rated JPMorgan(JPM Quote) funds also ranking in the "buy" range are JPMorgan Smart Ret 2010 A(JSWAX Quote), JPMorgan Smart Ret 2015 A(JSFAX Quote) and JPMorgan Smart Ret 2020 A(JTTAX Quote). The longer the target date, the more equity holdings and volatility, and the lower the initial ratings.

The second-highest ranked fund in our new coverage is the State Farm LifePath Income A(NILAX Quote).

A major drawback to these brand-name funds is they charge front loads of between 4.5% and 5%. MFS Diversified Income Fund(DIFAX Quote) charges a front-load fee of 4.75% of assets and a back load of 1%. The fund's largest stock holdings are Exxon Mobil(XOM Quote), Simon Property Group(SPG Quote) and AT&T(T Quote).

Leuthold Asset Allocation Fund (LAALX Quote) is the only newly rated stock mutual fund in the "buy" range that doesn't charge a front or back load. Along with stock holdings of Bristol-Myers Squibb(BMY Quote) and AstraZeneca (AZN Quote), as well as debt holdings of Bank of America(BAC Quote) and Morgan Stanley(MS Quote), the fund invests in mutual funds from various families, including Fidelity, Northern Trust(NTRS Quote) and T. Rowe Price(TROW Quote).