10 Stocks That Boosted First-Quarter Mutual Fund Returns

BOSTON (TheStreet) -- With risk-on trading since the beginning of this year, an environment in which stock-pickers should shine, the first-quarter returns for actively managed U.S. mutual funds was only mediocre.

They rose an average of 12.8%, compared with the S&P 500's 12.2% gain. So it's easy to see why investors continue to move into passively managed funds such as index or exchange traded funds.

And only 20 actively managed domestic funds with assets over $2 billion had returns of better than 18% in the quarter, according to a screen of Morningstar's mutual fund database.

Those increases likely indicate that experienced money managers at the big funds are remaining cautious and sticking with well-known large-cap stocks, because the faster-moving, small-cap stock Nasdaq Composite Index ended the first quarter up 19%.

Most of the top-performing funds rode technology and financial stocks for gains last quarter. Those sectors advanced 19.7% and 19.3%, respectively.

Of course, some fund managers earned their keep much better than others.