Kiplinger’s Mutual Fund Rankings, 2021
Most of us were all too happy to see an end to 2020, as the pandemic cast a shadow over everything. But from a stock investor’s perspective, the year was spectacular, and mutual funds had ample chances to prove their mettle. Despite swift bear market declines in bourses across the globe during February and March, by year’s end, most broad stock indexes closed at levels higher than at the start of 2020.
It was a year of firsts many times over. Investors suffered the first bear market in U.S. stocks in more than a decade and the deepest recession since the Great Depression, but both were gone in record time. And then began one of the best stock market reversals ever. From its bottom in March, the S&P 500 climbed 70%. The index’s 2020 return: A generous 18%. (Returns here are through December 31.)
A late-year rally following announcements of effective vaccines to fight the deadly pandemic was driven by a market rotation that turned longtime laggards into leaders. Large companies led the S&P 500 for most of the spring and summer, as they have for much of the past decade. But by fall, small- and midsize-company shares began to
