JPMorgan Growth Advantage Fund Class R4 JGTUX

JPMorgan Growth Advantage benefits from experienced leadership, a solid investment team, and a flexible approach.

This best-ideas strategy leverages J.P. Morgan’s accomplished growth-equity platform. Felise Agranoff leads the strategy and brings experience across the market-cap spectrum. In addition to her more than 5 years managing or comanaging this mostly large-cap-focused fund, she has managed the firm’s mid-cap growth strategy for more than a decade and previously comanaged its small-cap growth fund for six years. Comanager Larry Lee joined the strategy in 2022 and has spent more than 20 years at the firm. He also serves as a comanager on JPMorgan Large Cap Growth, helping support the strategy’s large-cap idea generation. Mike Stein, Agranoff’s comanager on JPMorgan Mid Cap Growth, will take over as lead manager of JPMorgan Small Cap Growth at the end of July 2026, helping ensure continuity to small-cap insights. The managers are backed by experienced large-cap and small/mid-cap growth analyst teams.

The strategy benefits from a flexible all-cap growth approach that broadly seeks high-quality, underappreciated growth companies. The managers pull top ideas from JPMorgan Large Cap Growth, JPMorgan Mid Cap Growth, and JPMorgan Small Cap Growth, resulting in a portfolio of roughly 85 holdings. While the managers emphasize growth, they also seek to manage risk relative to the Russell 3000 Growth Index, their preferred benchmark. Sector allocations are typically similar to the index, though there is room for differentiation; for example, as of May 2026, the strategy’s 45% technology allocation was 8 percentage points below the index’s weighting.

Recent results have been middling, but the strategy’s long-term record remains strong. Backed by the firm’s solid growth team, the strategy ranked in the top quintile of large-growth peers over the trailing 10-, 15-, and 20-year periods ended June 2026. Near-term results over the trailing year aren’t as strong, as the fund has found itself on the wrong side of the divide between artificial intelligence winners and laggards. Its underweighting in Alphabet versus the Russell 3000 Growth and lack of exposure to some other benchmark winners, including semiconductor equipment firms Lam Research and KLA, weighed on relative results.

Still, the strategy’s capable leadership, strong analytical support, and flexible all-cap approach make it a solid choice to rebound.

This strategy benefits from flexibility and conviction, supporting its Above Average Process rating.

Although the strategy resides in the large-growth Morningstar Category, it has long benefited from the flexibility to invest across the market-cap spectrum, including in small- and mid-cap companies. Many of its most successful holdings were not large caps when first purchased, including Tesla in 2011 and Netflix in 2013.

Managers Felise Agranoff and Larry Lee have broad latitude to select the best ideas from across J.P. Morgan’s growth-equity platform. Still, they seek to keep the portfolio reasonably aligned with the composition of the strategy’s preferred benchmark, the Russell 3000 Growth Index, serving as the core reference point. The team has thrived within this focused framework, typically owning more of the firm’s stronger-performing stocks while avoiding many of its less-successful holdings.

The firm’s dedicated growth teams look for underappreciated companies with solid fundamentals. It sometimes initiates positions after verifying catalysts that help build market recognition (often concurrent with an increasing stock price). Accordingly, the resulting portfolio usually tilts toward stocks with higher growth and momentum profiles than the benchmark.

The rapid appreciation of the large-growth segment has caused several of the benchmark’s largest constituents to grow to substantial weights that were difficult for the mutual fund to match under its prior diversified-fund classification. In 2025, the fund moved to nondiversified status, giving the managers greater flexibility to match or exceed those weightings if they choose, a notable positive.

As the market has become more top-heavy over time, so has the portfolio. As of May 2026, roughly 73% of assets were invested in giant- and large-cap stocks, according to Morningstar definitions. That was 11 percentage points below the Russell 3000 Growth Index’s 84% weighting. Most of the difference came from the strategy’s 25% allocation to mid-cap stocks.

Sector positioning tends to remain close to the index. As of May 2026, all but two sectors were within 3 percentage points of the Russell 3000 Growth Index. Technology represented the largest difference, with the fund’s 45% allocation sitting 8 percentage points below the index’s weighting. The managers also held 14% in consumer discretionary stocks, a 5-percentage-point overweighting relative to the index.

The resulting portfolio tends to be slightly more growth-oriented than the index. For example, the strategy’s aggregate trailing 12-month price/earnings ratio of 33.6 as of May 2026 was modestly above the index’s. The portfolio’s average long-term earnings growth projection of 12.9%, according to forecasts gathered by Morningstar, also landed slightly above the index’s.

As of May 2026, the strategy’s top five holdings were Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet, Broadcom, and Microsoft, broadly similar to the index’s largest constituents, reflecting the benchmark-conscious approach.

Capable leadership and strong supporting resources underpin this strategy’s Above Average People rating.

Although Felise Agranoff leads the strategy, its success has long been driven by a collaborative team approach, reflecting its all-cap mandate. The strategy benefits from a robust idea-generation process that draws from the firm’s large-, mid-, and small-cap growth strategies, which serve as important feeders to the portfolio.

Agranoff joined the strategy as a comanager in 2020 and assumed lead responsibilities in 2024. She brings extensive experience across the market-cap spectrum, having managed the firm’s mid-cap growth strategy for more than a decade and comanaged its small-cap growth fund for a six-year stint.

Larry Lee was added as a comanager in 2022 and contributes valuable large-cap expertise through his work as a comanager on JPMorgan Large Cap Growth. He brings more than two decades of experience with the firm.

While Mike Stein is not listed as a manager here, he serves as Agranoff’s comanager on JPMorgan Mid Cap Growth and comanages JPMorgan Small Cap Growth, where he will take the lead at the end of July 2026. This helps ensure continuity of small-cap ideas.

The managers benefit from a seasoned supporting cast. The firm splits its growth team into dedicated large- and small/mid-cap analyst groups that drive ground-level research. The small/mid-cap team draws on four managers and seven analysts. The large-cap growth team consists of seven managers/analysts.

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 posted mixed results since Felise Agranoff joined as comanager in late 2020. Through June 2026, the mutual fund’s institutional shares’ 15.6% gain beat the large-growth category norm’s 14.3%, but lagged the preferred Russell 3000 Growth Index’s 17%.

Longer-term results remain stronger, supported by the depth of the firm’s growth team. The strategy ranked in the top quintile of large-growth peers over the trailing 10-, 15-, and 20-year periods ended June 2026.

The strategy’s all-cap growth approach has contributed to elevated volatility. Its standard deviation, a measure of volatility, has typically run slightly above both the index and category peer average. As a result, the strategy has tended to outperform in rising markets but decline more sharply in selloffs. Its most notable stretch of underperformance came in early 2016, when investors fled high-growth stocks amid concerns about a slowing global economy. Since then, process refinements and timely risk-reduction calls have helped improve downside performance, most notably in 2022.

Recent results have been more middling. In 2025, the strategy trailed the index, partly because of weakness in communication-services and technology holdings, including its underweighting in Alphabet and Palantir and overweighting in HubSpot and Atlassian. In the first half of 2026, the strategy slightly lagged the index, partly due to its underweight position in Alphabet and lack of exposure to benchmark technology winners Lam Research and KLA.

JPMorgan Growth Advantage R4's Prospectus Adjusted Expense Ratio is 0.75% per year. It places it in the middle quintile of the Morningstar US Fund Large Growth Category, where the median fee is 0.81% per year. This cost positioning translates into a Medalist Rating Price Score of 0.28, 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.