6 Top-Performing Large-Growth Funds

It’s been another great year for large-growth funds, with technology stocks leading many such portfolios higher with help from the artificial intelligence boom. Within the category, some funds were especially adept at riding the tech stock wave.

To screen for the top-performing funds in this category, we looked for those with the best returns over the last one-, three-, and five-year periods. Among the ranks of large-growth funds, offerings from Fidelity especially stood out, taking up three of the six funds that passed the screen for the top-performing large-growth funds.

• Fidelity Advisor Equity Growth EQPGX
• Fidelity Contrafund FCNTX
• Fidelity Growth Company FGKFX
• Goldman Sachs Large Cap Growth Insights GCGIX
• JPMorgan Large Cap Growth SEEGX
• Schwab Us Large-Cap Growth ETF SCHG

Todd Trubey, senior analyst at Morningstar, says the success of these Fidelity strategies can be attributed to a strong analyst team that especially excels among growth stocks. “Fidelity’s growth managers tend to rise up through the ranks covering tech and other growth fare—such as biotech, other healthcare—and become diversified managers with a strong background in these areas,” he says. Trubey adds that Fidelity’s culture also encourages managers to go deep and develop their own distinct styles, which often drives impressive results that distinguish them from their peers.

Large-Growth Fund Performance

Despite a pullback in the stock market during August, Morningstar US Large Growth Index has returned a solid 18.11% for the year to date.

Large-growth funds have gained 22.16% this year through Sept. 27, while the overall market, as measured by the Morningstar US Market TR USD has gained 20.1%.

Large-growth funds have on average returned 40.44% over the last 12 months. On an annualized rate, large-growth funds have returned 5.91% over the last three years and 16.00% over the last five years. That compares with the Morningstar US Market Index, which has returned 33.34% over the last 12 months, 8.99% per year for the last three years, and 15.1% annualized for the last five years.

What Are Large-Growth Funds?

Large-growth portfolios invest in big US companies that are projected to grow faster than other large-cap stocks. Stocks in the top 70% of the capitalization of the US equity market are defined as large cap. Growth is defined based on fast growth (high growth rates for earnings, sales, book value, and cash flow) and high valuations (high price ratios and low dividend yields). Most of these portfolios focus on companies in rapidly expanding industries.

Screening for the Top-Performing Large-Growth Funds

To find the top-performing large-growth funds, we looked at returns data from the past one, three, and five years.

We screened for open-end and exchange-traded funds in the top 33% of the category using their lowest-cost primary share classes for those periods. We also filtered for funds with a Morningstar Medalist Rating of Bronze, Silver, or Gold. We excluded funds with assets under $100 million and analyst coverage that was not 100%. This left us with six funds that passed the screen.

Because the screen was created with the lowest-cost share class for each fund, some may be listed with share classes that are not accessible to individual investors outside of retirement plans, or they may be aimed at institutional investors and require large minimum investments. The individual investor versions of those funds may carry higher fees, reducing returns to shareholders. In addition, Medalist Ratings may differ among the share classes of a fund.

Fidelity Advisor Equity Growth I

• Ticker: EQPGX
• Morningstar Medalist Rating: Silver
• Morningstar Rating: 5 stars

The actively managed Fidelity Advisor Equity Growth Fund gained 46.69% over the past year, outperforming the average fund in the large-growth category, which rose 40.45%. The fund placed in the 17th percentile for performance and beat its benchmark, the Russell 3000 Growth Index, by 3.97 percentage points. The $11 billion fund has gained 10.57% over the past three years, while the average fund in its category is up 5.91%. Over the past five years, the Fidelity fund has climbed 20.61%, compared with the 16.0% gain for the category.

“Fidelity Advisor Equity Growth and Fidelity Growth Discovery feature a skilled duo of portfolio managers plying a thoughtful strategy that gives them an edge on the competition. Its People rating remains Above Average, and its Process rating rises to Above Average from Average.”— Todd Trubey, Senior Analyst

Fidelity Contrafund

• Ticker: FCNTX
• Morningstar Medalist Rating: Silver
• Morningstar Rating: 4 stars

Over the past year, the actively managed Fidelity Contrafund rose 46.92%, while the average large-growth fund gained 40.45%. The fund placed in the 16th percentile for performance and beat its benchmark, the S&P 500 index, by 10.5 percentage points. The $145.9 billion fund has climbed 10.81% over the past three years, outperforming the average fund in its category, which rose 5.91%. Over the past five years, the Fidelity fund is up 18.86%, while the average fund in its category is up 16.0%.

“Will Danoff has successfully steered this diversified strategy through multiple market cycles, including recent ones. The fund’s roughly 13% annualized return over the past decade beat the S&P 500 (the fund’s broad-market prospectus benchmark) and ranked among the best-performing third of funds in either the large-blend or large-growth Morningstar Categories. It’s a particularly impressive feat given the strategy’s colossal asset base of more than $200 billion across all accounts, which has long limited its flexibility.”—Robby Greengold, Strategist

Fidelity Growth Company K6

• Ticker: FGKFX
• Morningstar Medalist Rating: Gold
• Morningstar Rating: 4 stars

The $20.6 billion Fidelity Growth Company rose 49.94% over the past year. The gain on the actively managed fund beat the 40.45% gain on the average fund in the large-growth category, leaving it in the sixth percentile for performance. The fund beat its benchmark, the Russell 3000 Growth Index, by 7.22 percentage points. Over the past three years, the Fidelity fund rose 8.86%, while the average fund in its category rose 5.91%. Over the past five years, the fund has climbed 24.39%, compared with the 16.0% gain for the category.

“The strategy has become increasingly defined by its top holding, Nvidia NVDA. Since becoming the strategy’s most prominent stock-level differentiator in 2016, the stock has climbed at least 40-fold in market value, thanks in large part to its blockbuster results in 2023. Through its outperformance and despite Wymer paring it back somewhat, the stock’s share of the portfolio over the past year has doubled to more than 12% of assets. That’s a huge position size relative to the stock’s roughly 5% share of relevant large-growth indexes; it topped the Nvidia stakes of virtually all other US-sold funds, aside from tech funds; and it marked an all-time-high position size for the strategy, which prior to 2021 rarely held more than 8% in a single stock.”—Robby Greengold, Strategist

Goldman Sachs Large Cap Gr Insights

• Ticker: GCGIX
• Morningstar Medalist Rating: Bronze
• Morningstar Rating: 4 stars

The actively managed Goldman Sachs Large Cap Growth Insights Fund gained 46.34% over the past year, outperforming the average fund in the large-growth category, which rose 40.45%. The fund placed in the 19th percentile for performance and beat its benchmark, the Russell 1000 Growth Index, by 2.87 percentage points. The $1.4 billion fund has gained 9.03% over the past three years, while the average fund in its category is up 5.91%. Over the past five years, the Goldman Sachs fund has climbed 18.3%, compared with the 16.0% gain for the category.

“There is no shortage of brainpower supporting this effort, and this is one of the most well-resourced quant-based teams out there. Goldman’s Quantitative Investment Strategies team oversees this strategy alongside a slew of other offerings. The team is composed of roughly 40 people and led by a group of experienced and highly credentialed investors. Some members of the team focus on finding and analyzing new investment factors, while others work on the portfolio construction side of things. Sharanya Srinivasan was added to the management team in February 2024, bringing the total number of comanagers to five. The management team is highly seasoned in running quant strategies, and comanagers Len Ioffe and Osman Ali each began managing this portfolio more than a decade ago.”—Jack Shannon, Senior Analyst

JPMorgan Large Cap Growth

• Ticker: SEEGX
• Morningstar Medalist Rating: Bronze
• Morningstar Rating: 5 stars

The $98.3 billion JPMorgan Large Cap Growth Fund rose 46.1% over the past year. The gain on the actively managed fund beat the 40.45% gain on the average fund in the large-growth category, leaving it in the 20th percentile for performance. The fund beat its benchmark, the Russell 1000 Growth Index, by 2.63 percentage points. Over the past three years, the JPMorgan fund rose 9.78%, while the average fund in its category rose 5.91%. Over the past five years, the fund has climbed 20.87%, compared with the 16.0% gain for the category.

“Lead manager Giri Devulapally’s experience and expertise give this strategy an edge. He joined the firm in 2003 and has delivered exceptional results here since July 2005. Devulapally’s background as a technology and communications analyst fits the composition of this tech-heavy portfolio well, and an impressive supporting cast backs him. He leans on a team of five experienced sector analysts, four of whom were promoted to comanager between 2020 and 2022 as a recognition of their contributions to the strategy and to bolster eventual succession prospects. Comanagers Larry Lee, Holly Fleiss, Joseph Wilson, and Robert Maloney average more than 20 years of experience, including 12 at J.P. Morgan, and know their holdings well. The team has been relatively stable, and when departures occur, it successfully brings on experienced hires like consumer analyst Janet King in late 2022.”—Andrew Redden, Analyst

Schwab Us Large-Cap Growth ETF

• Ticker: SCHG
• Morningstar Medalist Rating: Silver
• Morningstar Rating: 5 stars

Over the past year, the passively managed Schwab US Large-Cap Growth ETF rose 45.47%, while the average large-growth fund gained 40.45%. The fund placed in the 24th percentile for performance and performed roughly in line with its benchmark, the DJ US TSM Large Cap Growth Index. The $32.7 billion fund has climbed 10.88% over the past three years, outperforming the average fund in its category, which rose 5.91%. Over the past five years, the Charles Schwab fund is up 20.48%, while the average fund in its category is up 16.0%.

“Schwab US Large-Cap Growth ETF SCHG constructs a market-cap-weighted portfolio of fast-growing US large-cap stocks with a low fee. Despite being top-heavy, the fund broadly represents the large-growth opportunity set and comes with a fee advantage that should translate into sound peer-relative performance.”—Mo’ath Almahasneh, Associate Analyst