BOSTON (
) --
Fidelity Investments
increased the number of funds ranked in our third-quarter Top 200 Stock Mutual Funds list to 28 from 20. This biggest of 415 fund families with 662 rated funds earns its ninth consecutive "Ultra" Fund Family title.
Up from third place in June, the runner-up on our Top 200 list of A and A-plus rated funds, published in our Fall 2009 Guide to Stock Mutual Funds by
, is
Vanguard
, with nine.
Honorable mentions go to
Alliance Bernstein
, a unit of
Axa SA
( AXA);
John Hancock
, a division of
Manulife Financial
(MFC) - Get Report
; and
Transamerica Funds
, a subsidiary of
Aegon NV
(AEG) - Get Report
. They tied for third place, each with six unique funds among the top 200.
We also publish a more comprehensive review of the fund families in which size matters less than overall results.
For a fund family to be considered an "Ultra" Fund Family, a company needs to place the highest percentage of funds ranked in the top 30% of all open-end funds in comparison with other fund families of similar size. The top 30% represents overall investment grades of A-plus down to B-minus. The middle 40% carry fund grades of C-plus, C and C-minus. D-plus and lower fall into the bottom 30%.
In this "Ultra" Fund Family competition,
Van Kampen
, a unit of
Morgan Stanley
(MS) - Get Report
, wins for the second consecutive quarter by having a higher share of its portfolio of funds ranked in the top 30%, or "buy" range, than any of the other fund families with 100 or more rated funds. Van Kampen boosted the percentage of its 171 rated funds in the top category to 57% from the previous quarter's 45%.
Up one spot to second place,
T. Rowe Price
(TROW) - Get Report
scored 56% of its 116 rated offerings in the "buy" range of B-minus or better. The only other large fund family with more than half its funds rated at "buy" was
MFS
, a division of
Sun Life Financial
(SLF) - Get Report
with 52.4% of its 315 funds ranked in the top 30%.
Of the 30 fund families with 40 to 99 rated funds,
Royce Funds
, a unit of
Legg Mason
(LM) - Get Report
retained the top spot for a second quarter in a row with 60% of the firm's 48 funds ranked as "buy."
Pacific Life Funds
, with 55 rated funds, held second place with 46%, up from 38%, of their funds ranked in the top 30%.
Pimco Funds
moved from 12th place to third with 45% of its 51 funds top-ranked.
First Eagle
wins the "Ultra" Fund Family crown within the group of 68 fund companies with 10 to 39 rated funds. Twelve of First Eagle's 15 rated funds ranked in the top 30%.
Henderson Global Funds
, a unit of
AMP
(AMLTF)
, retained second place with 75% top-ranked funds.
Oakmark
rose to third place from sixth with 67% of its funds "buy" rated.
A total of 281 fund families have less than 10 rated open-end stock mutual funds. The budding "Ultra" Fund Family leading this group,
Oak Associates Funds
, kept all six of its funds in the top 30%.
Harding Loevner Funds
, with five of five, and
Westport Funds
, with four of four, also score 100% top-rated funds and earned honorable mentions.
Kevin Baker became the senior financial analyst for TSC Ratings upon the August 2006 acquisition of Weiss Ratings by TheStreet.com, covering mutual funds. He joined the Weiss Group in 1997 as a banking and brokerage analyst. In 1999, he created the Weiss Group's first ratings to gauge the level of risk in U.S. equities. Baker received a B.S. degree in management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an M.B.A. with a finance specialization from Nova Southeastern University.
