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3 Balanced Mutual Funds for Superlative Returns

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Balanced funds offer investors the convenience of buying into a single fund rather than holding both equity and bond funds. This category of funds also reduces a portfolio’s volatility while providing higher returns than pure fixed-income investments.

The fund managers also enjoy the flexibility of changing the proportion of equity and fixed-income investments in response to market conditions. An upswing may prompt them to hold a relatively higher share of equity to maximize gains, whereas a downturn will see them shifting loyalties toward fixed-income investments to stem losses.

Below, we share with you three balanced mutual funds, viz. Arrow Managed Futures Strategy (MFTFX - Free Report) , TCW MetWest AlphaTrak 500 (MWATX - Free Report) and State Farm Balanced Fund (STFBX - Free Report) . Each has a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and is expected to outperform its peers in the future. Investors can click here to see the complete list of funds.

Arrow Managed Futures Strategy fund seeks to implement a fixed-income strategy and a managed-futures strategy. Using its fixed-income strategy, it invests part of its net assets in U.S. government securities, fixed-income securities, money-market instruments, overnight and fixed-term repurchase agreements, cash and other cash equivalents with maturities of one year or less. MFTFX also invests a portion of its net assets in a wholly owned and controlled subsidiary to seek returns through its managed futures strategy.

Arrow Managed Futures Strategy has three-year annualized returns of 13.1%. Joseph Barrato has been one of the fund managers of MFTFX since January 2014.

TCW MetWest AlphaTrak 500 fund invests most of its assets in fixed-income investments, comprising securities rated as investment grade or unrated securities. MWATX advisors maintain a portfolio duration of up to three years and a dollar-weighted average maturity of up to five years.

TCW MetWest AlphaTrak 500fundhas three-year annualized returns of 7.9%. MWATX has an expense ratio of 0.45%.

State Farm Balanced Fund invests most of its net assets in equity securities of preferably large and medium-cap companies. STFBX advisors consider large and medium-cap companies as defined by S&P Dow Jones Indices at the time of investment.

State Farm Balanced Fund has three-year annualized returns of 6.4%. As of the end of March 2024, STFBX had 208 issues and 7.1% of its net assets invested in Apple Inc.

To view the Zacks Rank and the past performance of all balanced mutual funds, investors can click here to see the complete list of funds.

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