JPMorgan U.S. Value Fund Class R3 JGAVX

JPMorgan US Value’s lead skippers are relatively new to those roles, but they have ample experience here and employ a well-established approach.

Morningstar has enhanced the way we assess alpha opportunity for funds, which is a key component in our ratings calculation. More of this strategy's Medalist ratings than usual may therefore change with this update, even in the absence of changes to pillar ratings or fund costs.

This strategy changed leaders in fall 2024, but it remains in good hands. Longtime lead manager Clare Hart retired on Sept. 5, 2024, after a 20-year tenure using her successful, sensible approach. Andrew Brandon and David Silberman were first her teammates and then her chosen successors. They’ve been portfolio managers here since 2019, and Brandon has been on this team since 2012. Both have decades of experience, mostly at J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

The comanagers have solid backing, starting with three dedicated analysts. Tony Lee and Lerone Vincent joined this value team in 2018 and 2022, respectively. In January 2024, the managers, including Hart, recruited Laura Huang from the firm’s central analyst team to cover financials here—Hart’s area of expertise. And this core team of five works with the central pool of 20 seasoned, high-caliber analysts.

The managers use a classic value approach focusing on solid but recently underappreciated businesses with sound capital-allocation policies. They seek 85-110 companies whose short-term troubles won’t create long-term problems. If this sounds straightforward and mainstream, it is: In this corner of the market, discipline and rigor are often more important than bold perspectives or intricate schemes. They generally keep most of the portfolio close to the Russell 1000 Value’s sector weightings while overweighting the stocks they like the most.

From the manager's collective November 2019 start through August 2025, the institutional shares’ 11.3% annualized gain outpaced both the typical large-value peer and the Russell 1000 Value Index. Their first year as lead managers after Hart’s retirement has been lackluster, but that hasn’t been due to any big changes to the portfolio.

This strategy’s sensible and effective approach earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating.

The search for holdings starts with a constant scouring of the US large-value universe for companies with consistent earnings, high returns on invested capital, sound financials, and evidence of capital discipline. The team runs a larger equity-income sibling that requires a dividend; this strategy does not, so the team has leeway to add firms with higher cyclicality, more financial leverage, and often better growth. Without the defensive dividend requirement, this approach’s risk-adjusted returns haven’t been quite as good, but it has usually done better in market rallies.

After establishing possible target stocks, the team looks for those with relatively low valuations, which it believes are trading at a discount to their intrinsic values. While it uses different metrics for various industries, it generally starts with free cash flow yield and price- and enterprise-value multiples.

The process’ output is an 85- to 110-stock portfolio. The team caps new stocks at 5% of assets but will allow positions to grow past that level. The managers keep exposure to each of the Russell 1000 Value Index’s sectors fairly close (they are technically allowed industry group weightings to vary by up to 10 percentage points). The managers successfully strive to keep the portfolio opportunistic yet prudent.

The portfolio’s recent positioning illustrates how the managers achieve this challenging balance. The June 2025 portfolio was within 2 percentage points in seven of the 11 sectors. Its meaningful underweightings were in consumer staples and communication services, where its 10% collective exposure was 6 percentage points below the Russell 1000 Value index’s. Its material overweightings were in financials and industrials, where its collective 43% stake was 7 percentage points above the benchmark’s.

The communications area illustrates one of the managers’ characteristic practices: selecting only a handful of top stocks within a sector. In this area, the Russell 1000 Value Index spread its 8.1% exposure across more than 40 securities—with almost half devoted to just-added Alphabet and Meta Platforms. This portfolio allocated 4.3% of its assets to four stocks: Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Comcast, and Walt Disney. It has owned Alphabet and Meta Platforms for years, but now underweights them compared with the index. And it overweights Disney and Comcast so that the index’s combined exposure to those four stocks is similar to the bogy’s.

In the overweighted financials sector, it’s a variation on this technique. The managers devoted half of the fund’s 26% financials stake to its top seven stocks in the area, all of which were in the index’s top 13 constituents within the sector. Then, 14 more stocks in the portfolio filled out the overweighting to the area.

The managing pair and their analysts earn an Above Average People Pillar rating. Comanagers Andy Brandon and Dave Silberman have only run the strategy as a duo since September 2024, but that understates their experience with the portfolio and each other. They became named managers here in 2019 (Brandon in February; Silberman in November), working with longtime lead manager Clare Hart. Brandon started on this team in 2012 as an analyst. Silberman, a 36-year veteran with the firm, headed the firm’s equity investment director and corporate governance teams after managing private clients’ portfolios. The pair has complementary expertise: Brandon oversees energy, materials, and industrial holdings, while Silberman handles the utilities, healthcare, telecom, and technology areas. While the managers defer to each other’s expertise in their core areas, every material buy or sell demands the approval of both.

The managers have a solid supporting crew, starting with three dedicated analysts. Tony Lee joined the value team in 2018; he covers healthcare, insurance, and REITs. Lerone Vincent joined this team in 2022, covering technology and basic materials. In January 2024, Laura Huang joined and took over financials that the retired manager Hart had long covered. All three analysts came from the firm’s central analyst group. And this five-person team also has access to the 20 central analysts, who average 23 years of industry experience.

J.P. Morgan continues to build a track record of strong stewardship, supporting a Parent rating upgrade to High from Above Average.

With more than USD 4 trillion in assets under management (including USD 1.3 trillion in money market funds) and a broad reach, J.P. Morgan is among the largest active asset managers in the US, Europe, and Asia. Although some multi-asset offerings have struggled over the past five years, prompting new leadership to make changes to investment teams, its equity and fixed-income teams boast long-tenured portfolio managers who practice repeatable investment processes that have generally produced strong long-term results. Most of its funds are core building blocks with long lifetimes, though its lineup around the world also includes more-specialized options: Two options-based equity-income exchange-traded funds, launched in 2020 and 2022, are now among the firm’s largest. J.P. Morgan has been an early mover in offering active ETFs, having converted 12 of its open-end mutual funds to the structure and launching others. It isn’t always at the forefront of emerging trends. While it has filed registration statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an interval fund and an ETF investing in private markets, it hasn’t yet introduced such an option for all investors, whether on its own or in partnership with another asset manager, unlike some of its closest competitors.

To support the firm’s diverse investment offerings, J.P. Morgan has invested heavily in both portfolio management tools and its client organization. Over the past 10 years, the firm has developed robust proprietary technology with advanced analytics and broad buy-in from investment analysts, portfolio traders, and portfolio managers, all of whom have easy access to the platform. The firm also stands apart for its demonstrated commitment to clients. In the early 2000s, J.P. Morgan began pivoting its engagement with financial advisors to adopt a more consultative approach, supported by its sought-after Guide to the Markets research series that focuses on investor education, not product pitches. This perspective can help clients stay the course, supporting positive investor outcomes.

Incentives reinforce alignment with fundholders. Beginning more than 10 years ago, investment team compensation is tied to three-, five-, and 10-year performance, and portfolio managers must invest at least half of their deferred compensation in J.P. Morgan strategies. Many firms encourage portfolio managers to invest alongside fundholders, but J.P. Morgan goes a step further in requiring client-facing individuals to invest substantial portions of their incentive compensation in the funds.

Although some funds still face high cost hurdles, more than half of share classes charge competitive fees relative to peers.

This strategy has lagged lately, but has come through long-term.

Since portfolio managers Andy Brandon and Dave Silberman took control as a duo in September 2024 through August 2025, the strategy lagged both the typical large-value Morningstar Category peer and the Russell 1000 Value Index by nearly 2 percentage points. That’s not due to changes they made: From June 2024, when former manager Clare Hart was in place, to June 2025, about 90% of the assets were invested the same way. They still use her approach, which drove an 8.8% annualized gain for the institutional shares from August 2004 through August 2025, topping the 8.6% return for the Russell 1000 Value Index and the 8.0% rise for the typical large-value category peer.

The strategy has had good long-term returns in most market environments. It has outperformed in four of the five Russell 1000 Value bull markets since 2004—the lone exception being the current run starting in October 2022. Meanwhile, in the five bear markets, it outperformed in three, while slightly lagged in two.

So far, 2025 has been the worst relative return year for the strategy since the comanagers were listed in 2019. That said, according to attribution analysis, through July, its lack of exposure to its parent company JPMorgan Chase (which it cannot own) was a material driver of underperformance. Not owning two of the General Electric entities, while overweighting United Health, a nasty error many shared, was another key detractor.

JPMorgan US Value R3's Prospectus Adjusted Expense Ratio is 0.94% per year. It places it in the second-most-expensive quintile of the Morningstar US Fund Large Value Category, where the median fee is 0.75% per year. This cost positioning translates into a Medalist Rating Price Score of -0.75, which reflects its relative price positioning within the category. The Price Score ranges from -2.50 (most expensive) to +2.50 (cheapest), with higher scores indicating better cost competitiveness.