The Daily Screen: The Best Small-Cap Blend Funds

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If you like investing in small-cap stocks but don't want to commit strictly to the growth or value style, check out the rather obscure small-cap blend category.

These funds typically invest in stocks of companies with market capitalizations below $1.5 billion. While most funds commit to a growth-investment style -- buying stocks of the fastest growing companies -- or a value-investment style -- hunting for bargains, blend funds mix both growth and value stocks in their portfolios.

This more diversified approach can keep these funds from posting outsize returns, but it also typically leads to lower volatility.

If big-cap growth stocks have grown into an outsize portion of your portfolio and you're looking for some small-cap exposure without too much risk, look this category over. We've sifted the group for those funds that beat their average peer over the last one- and three-year periods, according to Morningstar. Here's a top-10 list, ranked by one-year returns.

Leading Small-Cap Blend Funds These funds have bested their peers in recent years.
Fund	1-Year Return	3-Year Annualized
(SMCFX Quote)Schroder Micro Cap Inv	163.7%	94.2%
(NALFX Quote)New Alternatives	57.5	15.3
(SAGWX Quote)Sentinel Small Company A	52.6	19.9
(PBSVX Quote)PBHG Small Cap Value	45.3	16.1
(FCAPX Quote)First Funds Capital Appreciation I	44.7	15.8
(MVALX Quote)Meridian Value	41.4	26.3
(COSCX Quote)CMC Small Cap	39.1	19.5
(RHJMX Quote)UAM Rice Hall James Small Mid Cap	37.4	13.3
(MASPX Quote)Merrill Lynch Small Cap Value A	36.8	11.6
(WGROX Quote)Wasatch Core Growth	36.5	14.5
Avg. Small Cap Blend fund	20.9	6.9
S&P 500	2	15.1
Source: Morningstar. Annualized performance figures through Nov. 10.

You might want to skip the top funds on our list. No-load (SMCFX Quote)Schroder Micro Cap has a great record, but is currently closed to new investors, and the broker-sold (NALFX Quote)New Alternatives fund takes a concentrated approach with a decided bent toward "new energy" shops like Fuelcell Energy(FCEL Quote).

If you work with a broker, look at the broker-sold (SAGWX Quote)Sentinel Small Company fund or the (MASPX Quote)Merrill Lynch Small Cap Value funds, which have both beaten more than 80% of their peers over the last one- and three-year periods, according to Morningstar.

Do-it-yourselfers with an aggressive streak might look over the (PBSVX Quote)PBHG Small Cap Value fund, where manager Jerome Heppelmann isn't afraid to take big sector bets in shopping for beat-up stocks with promise.

If you're looking for a conservative fund, consider the (OTCFX Quote)T. Rowe Price Small-Cap fund, which barely missed making our list. If you're a hard-core indexer, look at Vanguard's (NAESX Quote)Small-Cap Index.

These funds have outperformed the sector, but across the board, small-cap blend funds have performed quite well in this choppy year.

Small Wonder It's been a great year for small-cap blend funds.
	Avg. Small-Cap Blend	S&P 500
YTD Return	9.3%	-3.8%
1-Year Return	20.9	2
5-Year Return	14	20.2
10-Year Return	16.9	18.5
Source: Morningstar. Annualized performance figures through Nov. 10.

Looking at the holdings that make up the biggest chunk of these leading funds, the word is eclectic. Then again, since there are a slew of small-caps out there to choose from and these funds fish in both the value and growth pools, that's not really a surprise.

Under the Hood The stocks with the biggest weighting in the combined portfolios of the 10 above funds.
Stock	Weighting in Top-10 Funds	Number of Top-10 Funds Owning the Stock
FuelCell Energy(FCEL Quote)	1.2	1
AmeriCredit(ACF Quote)	0.9	1
Rent-A-Center(RCII Quote)	0.9	1
Orthodontic Centers of America(OCA Quote)	0.8	3
Lincare Holdings(LNCR Quote)	0.7	2
Metris(MXT Quote)	0.6	3
Tom Brown(TMBR Quote)	0.6	3
Burlington Resources(BR Quote)	0.6	2
Calpine(CPN Quote)	0.5	1
Men's Wearhouse(MW Quote)	0.5	2
Source: Morningstar. Holdings as of funds' most recent portfolio reports.