Barron's Recap: Best Mutual Fund Families

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This weekend in Barron's online: a special report on the best mutual fund families, an interview with a noted critic of Vladimir Putin, as well as the prospects for AbbVie, Vantiv, Actuant, Ecolab and more.

Cover Story

"
Dressing Up 2014
" by Lawrence C. Strauss. This week's cover story in
Barron's
is a special report on mutual fund families. A dismal year for active management led to some surprising winners at the top of the Barron's/Lipper Fund Family Ranking, with Vanguard topping the list, followed by BMO Global, Invesco, SEI Group and Principal. The article offers profiles of each the fund families that rose to the top in 2014, along with an outline of the methodology for the rankings, and the results for five-year and ten-year rankings. It also takes a look at Pimco, which fared well last year despite the abrupt departure of both its CEO and co-founder Bill Gross, and it came out on top of the five-year rankings.
See also:This Disney Trading Strategy Has Beaten The Market In The Past, But Will It Work Again In 2015?

Feature Stories

"AbbVie: Big Pharma at a Discount Price" by Jack Hough suggests that investors have flocked to
AbbVie IncABBV
due to concerns about the patent cliff for rheumatoid arthritis treatment Humira, which is the world's best-selling drug. Alexander Eule's "A 15% Upside for Vantiv" points out that Visa, MasterCard and others have to replace some 1.3 billion cards with more-secure cards by
Vantiv IncVNTV
, which collects a fee on every transaction. In "Bill Browder: From Investor to Activist in Putin's Russia," Bill Alpert interviews the founder of The Hermitage Fund, who made, lost and made a fortune investing in Russia. Find out what Browder has learned about doing business in Moscow. Duilio Ramallo, portfolio manager of Robeco Boston Partners All-Cap Value fund, is profiled by Daren Fonda in "Steering Clear of Bumps." Discover how seeking cheap stocks, good balance sheets and business momentum helps Ramallo avoid value traps. See "Actuant Tools Up for a Recovery," in which David Englander makes at case for shares of
Actuant CorporationATU
to rebound by 25 percent, even though the industrial-equipment maker has been hurt by the energy downturn. In Dyan Machan's "Ecolab's Doug Baker Cleans Up," the CEO spotlight is turned on the chief of
Ecolab Inc. ECL
, who has moved the industrial-cleaning company into the fast-growing market for water-conservation products. The FDA has a vision of a nation free of tobacco-related diseases, according to "Nanny Doesn't Like Cigars" by libertarian author and lecturer James Bovard. Check out this Other Voices article to see how another right may be lost to zealous regulators. "The Wrong Price for Progress" is an editorial commentary by Thomas G. Donlan in which he discusses why helping the middle class should not mean making people more dependent.
See also:Morgan Stanley: These Sectors Will Benefit From Strong Consumer Spending In 2015
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Columns

Columns in this weekend's Barron's discuss:
  • Significance of the coming end of "open outcry" futures pits
  • Reading between the lines of the jobs report
  • President Obama's budget and Social Security
  • Tech favorites that took a hit on earnings news
  • How TurboTax has upset customers
  • A German start-up in 3D printing
  • The return of defined-benefit pension programs?
  • Why currency-hedged funds deliver less bang for the buck
  • Dividend hikes and debuts of the past week
  • The jobs report and a strengthening economy

Online Exclusives

"
The Case for Emerging Markets, Dividend Plays
" by John Kimelman. It is understandable that many investors would think this is a lousy time to invest in emerging market stocks, says this article. But if things are so bad, why is the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Fund up more in the past month that the S&P 500? The article also makes a case for questioning assumptions about U.S. dividend stocks when interest rates are expected to rise.
At the time of this writing, the author had no position in the mentioned equities.
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Posted In: Barron'sMediaAbbVieactuantBarron'sEcolabPIMCOTurboTaxvanguardVantiv
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