American Century Strat Allc: Agrsv InvTWSAX

Morningstar Rating

Fund Research and Analysis

by Karin Anderson

A recent manager change plus high fees keeps us from recommending American Century Strategic Allocation: Aggressive.

In July 2009, this fund's longtime manager, Jeff Tyler, left American Century. Since founding the firm's allocation strategies in 1996, Tyler built a great record here by making tactical allocations between nine of the firm's equity and fixed-income disciplines. Read more

Kudos

Experienced management.

Competitive relative and risk-adjusted performance over its lifetime.

All-in-one portfolio for investors with long time horizons and healthy appetites for risk. Read more

Risks

American Century closed the lowest-cost investor class shares of this fund to new investors Sept. 30, 2004. Those who are interested in this fund must buy the more expensive advisor class shares, which carry a 12b-1 fee, or the A, B, or C class shares, which bear front or deferred sales loads.

High-yield bond and emerging-markets stakes can add to risks.

The fund's turnover is higher than the category average. American Century as a firm goes to great lengths to keep trading costs low; nevertheless, the high turnover rate could generate more transaction costs as well as taxable capital gains distributions.

Do target-date funds make more sense as a one-stop portfolio? Read more

Strategy

This is more of a one-stop portfolio than a core fund. Unlike most funds in the large-blend category, this one consistently holds a sizable stake in bonds. Its management team parcels out slices of the portfolio to other American Century managers, who run their share of the assets like their own funds. Read more

Management

Jeff Tyler, this fund's lead manager since its inception, left the firm in July 2009. American Century hired Scott Wittman, previously the lead manager on quantitative strategies for Munder Capital Management, to run the firm's allocation strategies. Read more

Inside Scoop

This fund outsources security selection to the managers of some of American Century's other funds but manages asset allocation itself. Read more

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