The Individual Investor's Guide to the Top Mutual Funds 2025
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Overview of mutual fund performance in 2024
Analysis of top and bottom funds
Online resources and redesigned guide
Most no-load mutual funds directly available to individual investors realized gains in 2024 as stock prices rose across the globe and bond yields declined over much of the year.
Rising stock prices did not stop the ongoing net outflows from equity mutual funds. Investors, on balance, withdrew dollars from both domestic and foreign mutual funds throughout 2024.
Bond funds, conversely, attracted investor dollars. Data from the Investment Company Institute shows that net inflows (dollars invested less dollars redeemed) were positive for every month except June.
The number of mutual funds in our database continues to decrease. Slightly more than 22,000 mutual funds were in existence at the end of 2024, based on the data we receive from Morningstar. In comparison, there were 23,000 mutual funds at the end of 2023 and 24,000 funds at the end of 2022. Continued growth in exchange-traded funds (ETFs), increased usage of collective investment trusts in lieu of mutual funds in 401(k) plans and direct indexing options offered by investment management firms are reasons why.
Technology and large-cap growth mutual funds were the big winners. Both categories realized average returns of 29.0% in 2024. As was the case in 2023, Magnificent Seven technology stocks such as Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) drove the prices of those funds higher.
The big gains did not lead to overall large taxable distributions. The CapGainsValet website counted only 258 mutual funds making estimated distributions in excess of 10% of their net asset value (NAV) in 2024.
Redesigned Online Mutual Fund Guide
To help investors research mutual funds, we launched a redesigned mutual fund guide interface last year on AAII.com. It makes it easy to quickly access performance, risk, portfolio, and management and fee data on mutual funds.
Select a broad group from the Expanded Fund Listings list. You can then customize the fund categories you want displayed by removing unwanted ones from the Global Asset Type window located near the top of the page. You can also see key statistics for a particular fund by typing the ticker symbol into the “Search Tickers” box at the top of the list of funds. Exporting data is also easy. Simply click on the green “Export to Excel” button.
View All Funds With Detailed Data
Expanded Fund Data interactive lists of funds by category and detailed data on each fund. Spreadsheets for each asset class can be accessed under Expanded Fund Listings.
Performance Tables
While past performance is no indication of future performance, it may attest to the quality and consistency of fund management.
Nvidia Plays a Role in the List of the 50 Top-Performing Funds
Table 1 shows the 50 top-performing no-load funds for 2024. Six of the 10 top performers are large growth mutual funds. Large growth funds are also the most populous, with 29 funds from this category making the list.
Technology mutual funds were second with nine overall, including two of the three best performers.
This large representation of growth and technology is similar to what we saw last year. We identified 32 mutual funds that made both last year’s and this year’s top 50 lists. Credit these similarities to a favoritism toward large growth stocks, expectations for lower interest rates (including last year’s interest rate cuts) and the high interest in artificial intelligence (AI).
Many of the best-performing funds had large allocations to Nvidia. The company’s semiconductor chips are used in AI servers and data centers.
The Fidelity Select Semiconductors fund (FSELX), for example, had 24.8% of its portfolio allocated to Nvidia as of December 31, 2024. This allocation helped the Fidelity Select Semiconductors repeat as the best-performing fund for the second consecutive year. Last year’s 43.5% jump followed 2023’s 78.1% gain. The fund’s five-year annualized return of 30.6% is also Table 1’s best.
The managers of the Fidelity Select Semiconductors do diversify among other semiconductor companies. The 10 largest holdings account for 80.8% of the fund’s assets. Still, this fund is designed to track just a single industry.
The American Century Focused Dynamic Growth fund (ACFOX) is the second-best performer. It returned 43.3% in 2024. The fund allocated 15.2% of its portfolio to Nvidia as of the end of December. Beyond Nvidia, top holdings include Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL), Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. (CMG). The fund’s turnover ratio is a very low 8%.
The T. Rowe Price Communications & Technology fund (PRMTX) was the only top-five performing fund not to have had a double-digit allocation to Nvidia. This fund’s top allocation was Meta Platforms Inc. (META) at 8.5%. The fund’s 40.6% loss in 2022 is among the largest drops shown in Table 1.
Bond Funds Plus Foreign and Global Stock Funds in Bottom 50
Most of the mutual funds appearing in Table 2, the bottom 50 performers for 2024, are either bond funds, global stock funds or foreign stock funds.
The Vanguard Long-Term Treasury Index Admiral fund (VLGSX) had the worst 2024 returns of all bond funds we considered. It lost 6.5% of its NAV in 2024. Most of the portfolio is invested in bonds maturing in 15 years or longer.
The global small/mid stock Guinness Atkinson Alternative Energy fund (GAAEX) was the worst performer among global and foreign stock funds in 2024. Its 11.8% drop is also the third largest among the 50 funds shown in Table 3. Approximately 50% of the Guinness Atkinson Alternative Energy’s portfolio is invested overseas. Margin pressure and product delays within the electrical sectors were among the headwinds cited by the fund’s managers in their midyear 2024 update.
The worst-performing fund focuses on domestic stocks. The Fairholme fund (FAIRX) plunged 17.4% in 2024. This value fund holds just 12 positions. St. Joe Co. (JOE), a real estate investment trust (REIT), comprised 79% of the Fairholme’s total portfolio as of August 31, 2024. The fund’s high concentration leads to above-average volatility, as is indicated by its category risk index of 1.10.
The Largest Vanguard Funds Get Bigger
Table 3 highlights the 50 most widely held funds. These are the funds most likely to be in individual investors’ portfolios.
The Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Admiral fund (VTSAX) and the Vanguard 500 Index Admiral fund (VFIAX) are the only two funds to have more than $1 trillion in assets. The Vanguard 500 Index Admiral saw its assets increase from $954 billion last year to $1.37 trillion this year. The 43% increase in NAV reflects both the fund’s 25.0% return in 2024 and continued inflows of dollars from investors.
Overall, Vanguard accounts for 37 of the 50 largest funds. All mutual funds considered for this list must be no-load and noninstitutional funds. Special share classes (e.g., adviser, retirement, etc.) are also excluded. Only admiral share classes are shown for Vanguard funds that have both admiral and investor class shares.
There was no change in the rankings of the 10 most widely held funds between 2023 and 2024. The Fidelity Contrafund (FCNTX) is the largest non-Vanguard fund, with $153 million in total assets. This fund is joined by seven other Fidelity funds on Table 3. The Fidelity Contrafund’s expense ratio of 0.39% ranks among the lowest 20% of all large growth funds, earning it an A+ Investor Grade of A.
Dodge & Cox has two funds on the most widely held list, as does T. Rowe Price. The remaining fund is the Strategic Advisers U.S. Total Stock fund (FSAKX). This actively managed fund’s expense ratio is just 0.24%, and its annualized returns rank in the top 20% among large blend funds.
This Year’s Guide
Our annual mutual fund guide uses the data and tools available to members on AAII.com. They include our mutual fund grades and category averages.
The category averages provide a peer-based benchmark to compare a given fund against. They allow you to quickly see if a fund is more or less attractive than all other funds in a particular category.
The mutual fund grades range from A to F. The scale works just like it did when you were in school: A’s are good, while F’s are bad. Each of these grades is tied to a percentile rank based on how a specific fund compares to its category peers. A fund’s average annual return for a given period that ranks in the top quintile (best 20%) relative to that of its category peers will receive a grade of A. Lower grades are assigned for lower quintile rankings. So, a grade of C means that the fund’s return for a certain period was about average relative to that of its category peers (the 41st to 60th percentile).
Members using the online version of this guide can access data on more than 22,000 mutual funds on AAII.com. This large universe includes the no-load funds widely available to most individual investors as well as institutional and special share class funds. The latter may only be available through workplace retirement plans [e.g., 401(k) plans] and/or through brokers and financial advisers. Go to the mutual funds guide to access the expanded online version of the guide.
Our mutual fund data is updated monthly. Clicking one of the “Expanded Fund Listings” in the guide will allow you to view the funds in that group. Once in the expanded listings, spreadsheets can be downloaded by clicking on the green “Export to Excel” button located just above the fund names.
AAII members reading either the print or PDF version of this guide will see key mutual fund data presented for each fund on a single page. Approximately 360 mutual funds from a wide range of asset classes, fund groups and categories are covered in the print and PDF versions.
All AAII members have the ability to track the mutual funds they own in our My Portfolio tool on AAII.com. Clicking on a fund’s name or ticker (or typing either into the search box located at the top of most pages on our website) will call up our Mutual Fund Evaluator (Figure 1). This page provides the valuable fund information and data that you are most interested in. It’s a very helpful tool for conducting mutual fund research.
Which Mutual Funds Were Included?
The mutual funds that appear in this guide were selected from the universe of open-end funds tracked through Nasdaq. The following are the various screens we used for the final selection of which funds to include in the print and the PDF versions of this guide.
Categories
The starting point for determining which categories to include is the fund groups matching the AAII Asset Allocation Models. The stock and bond mutual funds comprising these groups are also the most frequently found in individual investors’ portfolios. We then expanded the list of fund categories to cover those of interest to a large number of investors or those that are commonly found in workplace retirement plans. This latter group includes sector funds, high-yield bond funds, allocation funds and target-date funds.
No digital asset funds met our criteria for inclusion. The expense ratios on the two noninstitutional funds, the Bitcoin ProFund Investor fund (BTCFX) and the Vest Bitcoin Strategy Managed Volatility fund (BTCLX), were too high. Plus, neither fund directly holds cryptocurrency.
Historical Record
Only those mutual funds with three full years of data are included in Table 4. This requirement ensures that there is a performance record of significant length and that all performance measures can be calculated. This requirement was loosened for the listings of the best- and worst-performing funds (Tables 1 and 2).
Size
Funds must appear in the Nasdaq mutual fund listings. Funds are generally required to have at least $500 million (preferably above $1 billion) in assets. A smaller size requirement is used for the top- and bottom-performing fund listings (Tables 1 and 2).
Loads
Only no-load mutual funds are included. Funds charging a load are excluded because of the large number of no-load funds available to individual investors and the drag on returns a front-end or back-end fee can have. Share classes more likely to have 12b-1 fees are also excluded.
Expenses
Funds with significantly higher expense ratios than the average for their category are generally excluded.
Performance
For the most part, funds that significantly underperformed compared to the average performance of funds in their category are not included. Exceptions were made for funds of significant size.
Interest and Availability
Only those funds that are of general interest to mutual fund investors and available for investment by individual investors directly from the fund, without restrictions, are included in the print/PDF version of this guide. If a fund family offers multiple no-load classes of its funds, the investor or retail class is presented.
Go to AAII.com for Information on More Funds
Performance figures for mutual funds that do not appear in the print version of this guide can be accessed at the mutual funds guide, where data on over 22,000 funds can be found. These include funds sold exclusively through advisers and those designated with special share classes, such as retirement.
Additional analysis can be conducted with our Compare Funds tool. You can use it to compare and contrast return, risk and turnover information for two or more funds. You can also track the funds you own or are most interested in with My Portfolio.
22,000+ funds
More grades for performance, risk and expense
Portfolio composition
Additional risk figures
Manager tenure
Loads and 12b-1 fees
Contact info
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Check box to quickly compare funds
Filter funds by category
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Definitions of terms
Downloadable Excel file
Also at AAII.com
Funds area at www.aaii.com/funds
Mutual Fund First Cuts: Mutual funds that meet basic filtering criteria.
Consistent Performers: The top mutual funds that have exceeded or fallen short of their category over the last three-, five- and 10-year periods, updated monthly.
Manager Changes: Lists of managers added or dropped, updated monthly.
Compare Mutual Funds: Enter tickers to see side-by-side comparison.