3 Top-Ranked Mutual Funds for Your Retirement

It is never too late to invest in mutual funds for retirement. As such, if you plan to invest in some of the best funds, the Zacks Mutual Fund Rank can provide you with valuable guidance.

The easiest, most reliable way to judge a mutual fund's quality over time is by analyzing its performance, diversification, and fees. The Zacks Mutual Fund Rank, which covers over 19,000 mutual funds, has helped us identify three outstanding options that are perfect for any long-term investors' portfolios that is retirement-focused.

Here are the funds that have achieved the Zacks Mutual Fund Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and have low fees.

Sterling Capital Behavioral Small Value I (SPSCX) has a 0.89% expense ratio and 0.6% management fee. SPSCX is a Small Cap Value mutual fund option, which typically invest in companies with market caps under $2 billion. With yearly returns of 11.53% over the last five years, this fund clearly wins.

Van Eck International Investors Gold Y (INIYX): 1.03% expense ratio and 0.65% management fee. Sector - Precious Metal funds like INIYX normally invest in stocks focused on the mining and production of precious metals such as gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. With yearly returns of 20.77% over the last five years, INIYX is an effectively diversified fund with a long reputation of solidly positive performance.

Vanguard InternationalCoreStock Inv (VWICX) is an attractive large-cap allocation. VWICX is a Non US - Equity option, focusing their investments acoss emerging and developed markets, and can often extend across cap levels too. VWICX has an expense ratio of 0.46%, management fee of 0.45%, and annual returns of 12.2% over the past five years.

These examples highlight the fact that there are some astonishingly good mutual funds out there. If your advisor has you in the good ones, bravo! If not, you may need to have a talk.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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