About the Barron's Ranking: To qualify for the Lipper/Barron's Fund Survey, a fund family must have at least three funds in Lipper's general U.S.-stock category, one in world equity (which combines global and international funds), one mixed-equity fund (which holds stocks and bonds), at least two taxable-bond funds, and one tax-exempt offering. Each fund's returns are adjusted for 12b-1 fees. Fund loads, or sales charges, aren't included in the calculation of returns, either. Each fund's return is measured against those of all funds in its Lipper category, such as, say, small-cap value. That leads to a percentile ranking, with 100 the highest and 1 the lowest, which is then weighted by asset size, relative to the fund family's other assets in its general classification, world equity, for instance. If a family's biggest funds do well, that boosts its overall ranking. Poor performance in a big fund would have the opposite effect. Finally, the score is multiplied by the weighting of its general classification, as determined by the entire Lipper universe of funds. The category weightings for the one-year results: general equity, 40.52%; world equity, 14.32%; mixed equity, 16.46%; taxable bond, 24.52%; tax-exempt bond, 4.18%. The scoring: Say a company has a fund in the general U.S. equity category with $50 million in assets that accounts for half of the company's assets in that category. Its ranking is the 75th percentile. The first calculation would be 75 x 0.50, which comes to 37.5. That score is then multiplied by 40.52%, general equity's overall weighting in Lipper's universe. So it would be 37.5 x 0.4052, which totals 15.2. Similar calculations are done for every fund in the study. Then, all the numbers are added up for a total score. The fund family with the highest score wins, both for each category and overall. The same process is repeated for the five- and 10-year rankings. Ranking data from Lipper.
Source: Barron's, 2/7/11. MainStay Funds ranked 40 for the one-year period, 17 for the five-year period, and three for the 10-year period ended December 31, 2010, out of 57, 53, and 46 fund families, respectively. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. All mutual funds are subject to market risk and will fluctuate in value.
MainStay Investments is a registered service mark and name under which New York Life Investment Management LLC does business. MainStay Investments, an indirect subsidiary of New York Life Insurance Company, New York, NY 10010, provides investment advisory products and services.
The MainStay Funds are managed by New York Life Investment Management LLC and distributed through NYLIFE Distributors LLC, 169 Lackawanna Avenue, Parsippany, NJ 07054, a wholly owned subsidiary of New York Life Insurance Company. NYLIFE Distributors LLC is a Member FINRA/SIPC.
For more information about MainStay Funds, call 800-MAINSTAY (624-6782) for a prospectus or summary prospectus. Investors are asked to consider the investment objectives, risks, and charges and expenses of the investment carefully before investing. The prospectus or summary prospectus contains this and other information about the investment company. Please read the prospectus or summary prospectus carefully before investing.
