Good Side Dish Funds for Your Portfolio

Thanksgiving wouldn't be the same if you only had turkey. To the contrary, most people have favorite side dishes that round out the meal. The same is true for your portfolio. You can have a fine portfolio with a few solid core investments, but it could be more robust if you supplemented your core holdings with a few supporting players.

We used the  Premium Fund Screener to find supporting player funds--funds that contribute to a portfolio but are secondary to the core--to liven up your portfolio.  Click here to run this screen yourself (not a Premium member? Try out the screener with a free, 14-day trial).

To ensure the funds add to the main dish, we limited our search to 5-star  Analyst Picks that our analysts have tagged as supporting players. The screen returned seven results as of Nov. 24, 2009.

Here's a taste of funds that passed:

 Mutual EuropeanTEMIX
Expenses: 1.38% | Minimum Investment: $1,000
From the  Analyst Report: It may look dull now, but Mutual European is one of our favorites. It works well as a complement to a large-growth-oriented foreign-stock fund. Investors that want extra exposure to European firms should do very well here.

 Royce PremierRYPRX
Expenses: 1.12% | Minimum Investment: $2,000
From the  Analyst Report: This fund is a superb choice for small- and mid-cap exposure in one shot. It offers the best ideas of managers Chuck Royce and Whitney George, who boast decades of investing experience in smaller-cap fare.

 Fidelity Floating Rate HighIncomeFFRHX
Expenses: 0.73% | Minimum Investment: $2,500
From the  Analyst Report: This fund's light touch has lasting appeal. Manager Christine McConnell's tempered style--emphasizing loans backed by ample collateral and lender-friendly terms, and using cash to maintain liquidity--strikes us as sensible in any environment. Fidelity's extensive loan and high-yield research team is another linchpin here.