9 Great Funds for This Aging Bull Market

The stock market appears poised to at least make a run on the all-time highs set in 2018. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index gained 13% during the first quarter of 2019 alone and has kicked off Q2 in a full-blown sprint.

Will it continue? On the one hand, several drivers still are in play, including still-low U.S. unemployment, inflation being kept in check and an accommodative Federal Reserve that appears poised to keep interest rates steady for the rest of the year. While the S&P 500 is extremely unlikely to match its roughly 20% profit-growth rate in 2018, Blockforce Capital CEO Eric Ervin, for one, says he still is "cautiously optimistic" for America's economy this year. "Corporate earnings should continue to grow in 2019, albeit at a potentially slower pace," he says.

But looming are a host of worrying issues, such as troubling global economic data points, continued uncertainty about U.S.-Chinese trade and an upcoming Q1 earnings season that FactSet analysts expect will mark the first quarterly year-over-year profit decline since 2016.

Here are nine of the best funds amid this aging bull market's recent charge. Some of these will benefit if this rally continues, while others are defensive plays to consider should the bull run out of steam. Each of these has something attractive to offer, such as a