Featured Tickers:

ARYVX , DLREX

FBIOX ,

FIUIX ,

FSAVX ,

FSDAX ,

FSELX ,

FSLBX ,

FSLEX ,

FSMEX , FSNGX

FSRPX ,

FSUTX , GARJX

As an investor, what you gain by looking at the hottest sector funds is insight into the forces influencing the short-term performance of your assets. Looking at one-month returns gives a picture of what’s happening in the markets currently and which funds are performing better than their peers.

To give you a snapshot of the investment market, this month’s Mutual Fund First Cut looks at the hottest sector funds within their sector category as of June 30, ranked by one-month returns. Sector funds are efficient for investors because you gain wide exposure to a particular market sector with one investment. Sector funds can also help you adjust your portfolio diversification and tilt.

Passing mutual funds ranked in the top 20% of their category for their one-month returns. The screen excludes funds with loads and requires an expense ratio category rank below 50%. The funds are also open to new investors, with a minimum initial purchase no greater than $10,000. Restrictions on share classes lowered the total number of passing mutual funds to 19, compared to the 25 ETFs in the accompanying First Cut ETFs list in this issue.

Because the First Cut looked at top-performing mutual funds within each sector, there wasn’t one dominant sector on the list of passing funds. The health sector was represented the most, with three funds. Two of those funds belong to the Fidelity family. Overall, 11 of the 19 hottest sector mutual funds are from the Fidelity family, which offers a wide selection of sector and industry mutual funds.

Most of the sectors on the passing list are represented by two funds. The two sector mutual funds with the highest one-month return as of June 30 focus on the technology sector, which has dominated large-cap growth performance in recent years. The requirement for the expense ratio category ranking to be in the bottom 50% (cheaper) kept the First Cut list from being almost entirely composed of tech sector funds.

Hottest Sector Mutual Funds
(Ranked by One-Month Return)

Fund	Ticker	1-Mo Ret (%)	1-Yr Ann’lizd Ret (%)	3-Yr Ann’lizd Ret (%)	Total Assets ($ Mil)	Sector
T. Rowe Price Global Technology	PRGTX	9.2	62.2	32.2	9,352	Technology
Fidelity Select Semiconductors	FSELX	7.7	69.8	34.2	6,682	Technology
Fidelity Select Biotechnology	FBIOX	6.4	17.7	14.4	8,095	Health
Fidelity Select Medical Tech and Devcs	FSMEX	6.3	40.8	23.7	9,555	Health
T. Rowe Price Comm & Tech Investor	PRMTX	6.1	39.2	27.5	12,024	Communications
Fidelity Select Natural Gas	FSNGX	5.8	56.7	(14.8)	142	Equity Energy
T. Rowe Price Health Sciences	PRHSX	5.6	33.3	20.0	19,006	Health
Fidelity Select Automotive Port	FSAVX	5.3	94.1	28.6	203	Consumer Cyclical
Fidelity Select Retailing	FSRPX	4.1	50.4	23.7	4,615	Consumer Cyclical
DoubleLine Colony Rl Estt Inc N	DLREX	3.5	38.2	--	15	Real Estate
American Century Global Real Estate Inv	ARYVX	2.4	35.1	12.1	126	Global Real Estate
Fidelity Select Brokerage & Invmt Mgmt	FSLBX	1.9	57.1	20.3	578	Financial
Goldman Sachs Global Rl Estt Secs Inv	GARJX	1.8	32.2	7.7	167	Global Real Estate
Goldman Sachs Clean Energy Income Inv	GCEJX	1.4	34.8	--	412	Infrastructure
Goldman Sachs Global Infras Inv	GGINX	0.6	15.8	8.9	245	Infrastructure
Fidelity Telecom and Utilities	FIUIX	(0.3)	17.1	8.3	970	Utilities
Fidelity Select Utilities	FSUTX	(0.7)	19.2	8.3	963	Utilities
Fidelity Select Defense & Aero Port	FSDAX	(0.8)	37.4	6.9	1,756	Industrials
Fidelity Envir and Alt Engy Fund	FSLEX	(1.1)	57.4	17.5	502	Industrials
Source: AAII/Morningstar. Data as of 6/30/2021.