Large and In Charge: Growth Fund Shows a Big Fund Can Perform

The conventional wisdom on big, asset-laden mutual funds is that they are essentially expensive index funds that can't maneuver quickly and can't handily beat the broader market.

Nobody told that to the (AGTHX Quote)Growth Fund of America.

So far this year the $37.2 billion large-cap fund, the nation's tenth-largest, has ridden semiconductor and pharmaceutical stocks to a 20.8% return, dusting the average U.S. stock fund and lapping the nine other giants on the list of 10 biggest funds. The gaudy return posted by the stodgy-named fund from quiet giant American Funds challenges the old saw that big funds are plodding performers. ...