Balanced funds offer investors the convenience of buying 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 top-ranked balanced mutual funds, namely George Putnam Balanced Fund PGEOX , State Farm Balanced Fund STFBX and Dodge & Cox Balanced Fund DODBX. Each has earned 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.

George Putnam Balanced Fund invests most of its net assets in a portfolio of bonds and common stocks. PGEOX advisors generally invest in common stocks of large-cap domestic companies with growth, value, or both characteristics.

George Putnam Balanced Fund has three-year annualized returns of 8.9%.  As of January 2024, PGEOX had 132 issues and 4.3% of its net assets invested in Microsoft.

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 7.4%. STFBX has an expense ratio of 0.14%.

Dodge & Cox Balanced Fund seeks long-term growth capital appreciation along with current income by investing most of its net assets in a diversified portfolio of equity and debt securities in various proportions. DODBX advisors may also invest a small portion of their net assets in U.S. dollar-denominated equity or debt securities of foreign issuers traded in the United States but not part of the S&P 500 Index.

Dodge & Cox Balanced Fund has three-year annualized returns of 8.3%. David C. Hoeft has been one of the fund managers of DODBX since January 2002.

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

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