One Year Is Not Enough

The

Morningstar FundInvestor

500 presently includes 55 funds with Morningstar Analyst Ratings of Neutral, an indication that the analysts who cover them lack confidence in their prospects for outperformance over the course of a full market cycle. That does not preclude such funds from having an impressive year here or there, however. In 2014, 11 Neutral-rated Morningstar 500 funds earned spots in the top quintile of their respective peer groups. The three funds highlighted below--

Fidelity Magellan

FMAGX,

T. Rowe Price International Stock

PRITX, and

PIMCO Global Multi-Asset

PGMDX--were among these Neutral-rated overachievers. Despite the strong showing and other positive attributes, each still has something to prove before meriting a place among the Morningstar 500's Medalists.

Fidelity Magellan Jeffrey Feingold is the latest manager tapped to help this fund reclaim its glory days. Under former manager Peter Lynch, the fund had an epic run from mid-1977 to mid-1990. Magellan's 29% annualized gain in the Lynch era nearly doubled the S&P 500's. Following his departure, the fund struggled to beat its benchmark consistently and went through four managers prior to Feingold's mid-September 2011 start date.

The fund has been competitive under Feingold. Last year, its 14% gain edged past the index and claimed a top-decile spot in the large-growth Morningstar Category. Feingold focuses on firms whose valuations don't capture their earnings potential while also investing in some cheap names with improving fundamentals. The fund benefited from both types of stocks in 2014, especially within the biotech and airlines industries. The reason for continued caution here is that Feingold's tenure thus far has coincided with a generally rising market, which is when his style thrives. His former charge Fidelity Trend FTRNX underperformed in market downturns, and this fund has yet to be tested in such an environment. Plus, the fund still modestly trails the index on Feingold's watch through January 2015.

T. Rowe Price International Stock In a tough year for international investing, this fund's 0.8% loss was good enough to beat the MSCI All Country World Ex-U.S. Index by 3 percentage points and land in the foreign large-growth category's top quintile. The fund faces an uncertain future, however. Manager Robert Smith, who's ably guided the fund since October 2007, will retire in late March 2015; Richard Clattenburg will replace him. Clattenburg has been an associate manager on the fund since 2010. He plans to keep intact the fund's strategy of focusing on companies that are positioned to grow their earnings at double-digit rates over several years and that possess a number of other positive attributes, such as strong market shares and superior brands or technologies. The strategic continuity is a plus, and Clattenburg's experience here means that he's well-grounded in the approach. What he lacks, however, is a track record of his own that gives any indication of how he'll fare.

PIMCO Global Multi-Asset

This fund was part of what ended up as a headline-grabbing 2014 for PIMCO. That started in late January when the fund's lead manager and PIMCO's CEO and co-CIO Mohamed El-Erian left the firm. Mihir Worah took over as lead and subsequently guided the fund to a stellar year. With flexibility to invest long and short across asset classes, Worah made well-timed tactical bets on developed-markets equities, U.S. apartment REITs, high yield, and inflation-protected bonds. The fund gained 7% in 2014, which beat all but a handful of world-allocation peers. PIMCO's December termination of analyst Rahul Seksaria marred that stellar year, however. PIMCO fired Seksaria, who had been transitioning to the Worah-led multiasset team that backs this fund, shortly after the Chicago Mercantile Exchange censured him for improper trading in April 2012. In that incident, he sold eurodollar futures contracts on behalf of