John Hancock Lifestyle Balanced Portfolio Fund (JALBX)

One of the popular moderate allocation balanced mutual funds is John Hancock Lifestyle Balanced Portfolio. In general, this balanced fund has 4 categories such as conservative allocation, moderate allocation, aggressive allocation and world allocation.

John Hancock Lifestyle Balanced Portfolio (JALBX)

The investment objective of John Hancock Lifestyle Balanced Portfolio fund is to provide a high level of current income and growth of capital. This moderate allocation mutual fund utilizes most of its assets to buy other funds which invest primarily in equity securities (<60%) and in fixed-income securities (40%). You can also check my top balanced mutual fund article.

Fund Profile

• Fund Inception Date: 10/15/2005
• Ticker Symbol: JALBX
• CUSIP: 47803V481
• Beta (3yr): 1.14
• Rank in category (YTD): 29%
• Category: Moderate Allocation
• Distribution: 2.96%
• Capital Gains: 0%
• Expense Ratio: 0.54%  
• Net Assets: $ 22.35 billion
• Number of Years Up: 4 years
• Number of Years Down: 2 years
• Annual Turnover Rate: 19.00%

updated on 6/6/2012

JALBX fund

This John Hancock fund is managed by Steve Orlich since its inception in October 2005. The annual expense ratio of 0.54% is lower than the average in the Moderate Allocation category (0.98%). The 12b1 fee is 0.30% and the front end sales load fee is 5.00%. The fund has 2.96% dividend. The most recent dividend was distributed in December 2011 in the amount of $0.25. The annual holdings turnover rate as of January 2012 is 19%.

Morningstar has rated this balanced fund with 2-star rating. This moderate allocation mutual fund has its best achievement in 2009 (32.87%). Based on the load adjusted return, this fund has returned -7.49% over the past 1 year, 11.62% over the past 3 year, and 0.14% over the past 5 year. The benchmarks of this fund are S&P 500 Index and Barclays Capital U.S. Aggregate Bond Index.

Investor can start investing in this moderate allocation balanced mutual fund with a minimum initial investment of $2,500. This amount applies for either brokerage or IRA account. There is no minimum subsequent investment needed. The other classes of this fund are Class B (JBLBX), Class C (JCLBX) and Class R1 (JPLBX). This fund is available for purchase through 87 brokerages, such as Scottrade Load, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Edward Jones, Fidelity Retail Funds Network, Schwab Institutional, Morgan Stanley Advisors, etc.

Top Performer Moderate Allocation Balanced Funds

The allocation of this fund as of December 2011 is Aggressive Growth (20.5%), Growth (20.6%), Growth and Income (20.6%) and Income (38.3%). The Aggressive Growth consists of Emerging Markets (DFA), Global Shareholder Yield (Epoch), International Value (Franklin Templeton), International Core (GMO), etc.

Risks of investing in this mutual fund are Active management risk, Exchange-traded funds risk, Fund of funds risk, Investment company securities risk, Industry or sector risk, initial public offering risk, etc.

Pros & Cons

Advantages are:

• Low minimum initial investment of $2,500
• Popular investor choice with big total net assets

Disadvantages are:

• It has a sales load
• High expense fee

Disclosure: No Position

Other Popular Balanced Mutual Funds:

• T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation (PRWCX)