Fund Evaluator:

MFS Lifetime Income R4 Overview

MFS Lifetime Income R4 (MLLJX) is an actively managed Allocation Target-Date Retirement fund. MFS launched the fund in 2005.

The investment seeks total return through a combination of current income and capital appreciation. The fund is designed to provide diversification among different asset classes by investing the majority of its assets in other mutual funds advised by MFS. Within the stock fund allocations, MFS seeks to diversify by geography (by including domestic and international underlying funds), in terms of market capitalization (by including large, mid, and small capitalization underlying funds) and by style. Within the bond fund allocation, MFS includes underlying funds with varying degrees of geographic, interest rate and credit exposure.

About MFS Lifetime Income R4 (MLLJX)

There are 3 members of the management team with an average tenure of 4.59 years: Ben Nastou (2023), Natalie Shapiro (2018), Erich Shigley (2023). Management tenure is more important for actively managed funds than passive index funds.

The fund has 6 primary benchmarks: Bloomberg US Agg Bond TR USD index with a weighting of 100%, FTSE EPRA Nareit Dev Real Estate NR USD index with a weighting of 2%, Bloomberg US Agg Bond TR USD index with a weighting of 71%, MSCI EAFE NR USD index with a weighting of 5%, S&P 500 (TR) (1970) index with a weighting of 20% and Bloomberg Commodity TR USD index with a weighting of 2%. MFS Lifetime Income R4 has 27 securities in its portfolio. The top 10 holdings constitute 78.7% of the fund’s assets. The fund meets the SEC requirement of being classified as a diversified fund. The fund is not considered to have an ESG focus with its investment selection and management.

MFS Lifetime Income R4 is part of the Allocation global asset class and is within the Allocation fund group. MFS Lifetime Income R4 has 20.1% of its portfolio invested in foreign issues. The overall assets allocated to domestic stock is 19.4%. There is 6.4% allocated to foreign stock, and 0.3% is allocated to preferred stocks. The bond allocation as a percentage of total assets is 83.4% (69.7% domestic bond, 13.7% foreign bond and 0.0% convertible bond). MFS Lifetime Income R4 has -11.5% of the portfolio in cash.

Assets Under Management

The fund has $24 million in total assets, which is below the $487 million average for the Target-Date Retirement category. Normally, lower assets under management translates to higher average expense ratios, and greater total assets are desired. However, for some investment categories, such as small-cap investing, it may be difficult for the manager to fully employ the desired active strategy if assets grow too large or too quickly.

MLLJX Performance and Fees

The expense ratio measures how much of a fund’s assets are used for administrative expenses and operating expenses, including adviser fees and fees for the transfer agent and custodial services. The MFS Lifetime Income R4 expense ratio is average compared to funds in the Target-Date Retirement category. MFS Lifetime Income R4 has an expense ratio of 0.44%, which is 32% lower than its category average, making the fund expense ratio grade a B. While it is difficult to predict returns, it is known that high annual expense ratios reduce your rate of return, and excessive fees are difficult to overcome. Active management normally comes with higher expense ratios than passive index management. Certain investment categories such as small company and foreign also normally have higher expense ratios. It is best to compare fund expense ratios against the category averages for meaningful assessments.

High portfolio turnover can translate to higher expenses and lower aftertax returns. MFS Lifetime Income R4 has a portfolio turnover rate of 5%, indicating that holds its assets around 0.2 years. By way of comparison, the average portfolio turnover is 28% for the Target-Date Retirement category.

Recently, in the month of July 2026, MFS Lifetime Income R4 returned -0.3%, which earned it a grade of A, as the Target-Date Retirement category had an average return of -0.6%. The letter grades of A, B, C, D and F are based upon relative rankings within the investment category. A grade of A, for example, would indicate that the return is in the highest 20% for that time period compared to all funds in that category.

MFS Lifetime Income R4 has a trailing yield of 3.46%, which is above the 3.19% category average. The fund normally distributes its income monthly and its capital gains annually.

It’s natural to seek the best-performing investments, but you must consider the relationship between risk and return and the impact of costs and taxes on your realized returns.

MFS Lifetime Income R4 Grades

Year to date, the fund has returned 3.6%, 0.3 percentage points worse than the category, which translates into a grade of D. The fund has returned 7.7% over the past year (grade of F), 7.5% over the past three years (grade of D) and 3.4% per year over the past five years (grade of D) and 5.0% per year over the past 10 years (grade of C).

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