The bigger picture for clearer decisions. John Lekas runs The Leader Short-Term Bond Fund with a top-down approach, a macro view which determines the direction of the portfolio. Opportunistic in nature, the fund aims to buy at the right moment and the right price.

Since growth comes in various flavors, John Enlund, the manager of Country Growth Fund, emphasizes the growth in fundamentals that is reasonably priced in the stock. This low-turnover large-cap growth fund utilizes both the top-down approach to identify sectors and bottom-up analysis to pinpoint companies. Involving other portfolio managers as analysts, the fund benefits from the differentiated perspectives on stock picking.

With a focus on capital preservation, Greenspring Fund aims at steady, non-volatile performance, regardless of what the markets are doing. This broad mandate, which enables the Fund to look for value in any capitalization range, is crucial for achieving its goal. Chip Carlson, the manager of the Fund, believes in knowing your boundaries and investing within areas you understand well.

A small but experienced and loyal team is one of the greatest assets of Becker Capital Management. The privately held advisor to the Becker Value Equity Fund is committed to remain independent with all of its shareholders being employees of the firm. Opportunistic in nature, the fund invests primarily in large undervalued companies with stable to improving fundamentals.

Investing is as much art as science. Short-term investors reward fast-growing companies with high multiple valuation but invariably this growth slows down, taking down the high-flying stocks with it. Finding companies with stable growth, strong market positions and rising return on capital takes analysis and conviction beyond reading financial statements. The team managing the FMI Large Cap Fund thrives in researching companies and stocks for these metrics.

Many fund managers target stable growth but few base their investing on the most stable human needs existing from the beginning of time. Gerald Sparrow, the manager of the Sparrow Growth Fund, invests in companies that serve necessities such as housing, utilities, food, and certain services. Otherwise, the fund is free to invest in any market cap range and any geographic market as long as the stocks satisfy its growth criteria.

Investing in healthcare requires special understanding of drugs, diseases and the business of healthcare delivery. With the population ageing and cost of delivery of healthcare spiraling there are opportunities to make and lose money. At T. Rowe Price Health Science Fund, Kris Jenner devotes his time to separating the winners from the losers and is willing to pay a reasonable price for growing companies.

Investors have long believed that investing in individual real estate properties or private real estate partnerships is more lucrative than investing in publicly traded REITs. However, publicly traded REITs can offer opportunities to an investor who researches the underlying property portfolios and identifies those REITs that are trading at a discount to the market values of their net asset value. At Adelante, Michael Torres rigorously researches and values each company to identify discounts.

The Chase Growth Fund is not a typical growth fund. With a fairly concentrated portfolio, it relies on a disciplined quantitative and qualitative process to build a high level of confidence in each idea. David Scott, manager of the fund, believes that the in-house research team and the extra step it takes in analysis are major assets. Building its own universe of growth companies, the fund often benefits from spotting stocks before they are included in the index.