These tables rank the top-performing stock and bond mutual funds for the second quarter of 2003 for each of the main investment categories as defined by research firm Morningstar Inc., which provided the data for these tables. The tables of top-performing funds are followed by individual performance figures for 5,400 mutual funds, organized by fund company.
Most of the mutual funds that invest in the stocks of U.S. companies are sorted by Morningstar into nine broad categories. First, the funds are categorized by the average market capitalization of the stocks they own: large, mid-cap or small. (A stock's capitalization is its share price times the number of its shares outstanding.)
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday July 11, 2003 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 37 words Type of Material: Correction
Quarterly mutual fund ranking -- A chart in Monday's Business section that ranked the second quarter's top-performing short-term government bond mutual funds listed the wrong funds. The correct listing appears on Page C4 of today's Business section.
The funds are further categorized by their basic investment objective: growth, value or a blend of the two. Among other criteria, growth-oriented funds tend to focus on stocks of companies that have, or are expected to have, robust earnings growth. Value funds look for stocks that appear to be underpriced relative to the underlying value of the company.
In the tables, these broad categories are identified as large growth (LG); mid-cap growth (MG); small growth (SG); large blend (LB); mid-cap blend (MB); small blend (SB); large value (LV); mid-cap value (MV); and small value (SV).
Other stock funds are categorized as follows:
* Specialty funds: Invest primarily in companies within a single industry or sector. The sectors are: communications (SC); financial (SF); health (SH); natural resources (SN); precious metals (SP); real estate (SR); technology (ST); utilities (SU).
* Bear-market: Uses strategies, such as short selling and put options, designed to profit from falling stock prices.
* Moderate and conservative allocation (CA, MA): Formerly combined under the category of "domestic hybrid." Includes funds that invest in a mix of stocks and bonds. Conservative funds have at least 20% of their assets invested in stocks and 50-80% invested in fixed-income securities and cash. Moderate funds have 50-70% of their assets invested in stocks and more than 10% invested in fixed-income.
* Convertibles (CV): Invests in bonds and preferred stocks that can be converted to common stocks.
* Foreign stock (FS): Invests primarily in foreign stocks, with no more than 10% of assets invested in U.S. stocks.
* World (WS): Invests primarily in foreign stocks, with more than 10% of assets invested in U.S. stocks.
