Small-cap growth funds are natural choices for investors with a high-risk appetite when capital appreciation over the long term takes precedence over dividend payouts. These funds focus on realizing an appreciable amount of capital growth by investing in stocks projected to rise in value over the long term.
Moreover, small-cap funds are good choices for investors seeking diversification across different sectors and companies. These generally invest in companies with a market cap lower than $2 billion. The companies, smaller in size, offer growth potential and their market capitalization may increase subsequently. Also, due to their lower international exposure, small-cap funds provide higher protection than their large- and mid-cap counterparts against any global downturn.
Below, we share with you three top-ranked small-cap growth mutual funds, namely Putnam Small Cap Growth PNSAX, T. Rowe Price Integrated US Small-Cap Growth Equity PRDSX and Goldman Sachs Small Cap Growth Insights GSAOX. Each has earned a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and is expected to outperform its peers in the future. Investors can click here to see the complete list of funds.
Putnam Small Cap Growth primarily allocates its net assets to common stocks of small U.S. companies, with an emphasis on growth-oriented stocks. According to the fund’s advisors, growth stocks are those expected to deliver earnings growth that outpaces comparable firms.
Putnam Small Cap Growth has a three-year annualized return of 15.8%. As of March 2025, PNSAX held 99 issues, with 2.5% of its assets invested in Merit Medical Systems.
T. Rowe Price Integrated US Small-Cap Growth Equity primarily invests in common stocks of U.S. small-cap growth companies. The fund considers small-cap growth companies to be those whose market capitalization at the time of purchase lies within the range of firms included in the MSCI US Small Cap Growth Index.
T. Rowe Price Integrated US Small-Cap Growth Equity has three-year annualized returns of 12.8%. PRDSX has an expense ratio of 0.81%.
Goldman Sachs Small Cap Growth Insights primarily invests its net assets in a broadly diversified portfolio of equity securities issued by small-cap U.S. companies. In addition, GSOAX allocates a portion of its assets to fixed-income securities regarded as cash equivalents.
Goldman Sachs Small Cap Growth Insights has a three-year annualized return of 15.5%. Dennis Walsh has been one of the fund managers of GSAOX since March 2013.
To view the Zacks Rank and the past performance of all small-cap growth mutual funds, investors can click here to see the complete list of small-cap growth mutual funds.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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