Meet the mutual fund that created $1 trillion in value for investors
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The basic job of a mutual fund is to take investors’ dollars and turn them into more dollars. The funds that have proved most successful have key things in common—they are large, low cost, and diversified—finds a Morningstar study.
That may come as no surprise to fans of index funds, which tend to be designed with those features in mind. Plenty of active funds, including favorites like Growth Fund of America and Fidelity Contrafund, are also top performers, Morningstar found. Morningstar examined which funds increased their assets under management the most in the 10 years ended in 2024, while factoring out flows into and out of the funds.
Top of the list was Vanguard Total Stock Market Index fund, which created $1.15 trillion in new dollars for its investors. While many of the top 15 funds on Morningstar’s list are index funds, American Fund’s The Growth Fund of America was No. 6, generating $265 billion in wealth for fundholders, and Fidelity Contrafund ranked tenth, with $170 billion.
Because Morningstar’s study judged value by the cumulative number of dollars created by the funds, it favored funds with large asset bases. Indeed, the $1.81 trillion Vanguard Total Stock Market Index fund is the largest on the market. Still, the list should give investors insights when it comes to picking funds, says author Amy Arnott.
Read on livemint.com