Investing February 28, 2002

New Mutual Funds Outperform S&P 500 in 2001

February 28, 2002 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Mutual funds that turned one-year-old at the close of 2001 outperformed the market over the year, returning -9.8%, compared to a fall of 11.9% in the S&P 500, according to Standard and Poor's.
Reported by

The research firm reports that of the 71 funds in the group:

  • 20 are growth offerings, including six technology funds
  • six have “value” in their names
  • eight were fixed-income funds
  • two were balanced offerings.

In contrast, of the 51 funds that ended their first 12 months since inception in December 2000, over three quarters were growth or technology-oriented funds.

According to S&P, over 2001, value-oriented funds contributed most to the group’s performance, with three of the top five performing one-year-old funds falling into this category.

On the flipside, technology and aggressive funds generally dragged the group down – the five worst performing start-ups were all growth offerings, S&P reports.

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