JPMorgan Large Cap Value Fund Class A OLVAX

JPMorgan US Value features experienced managers plying a time-tested approach.

Portfolio managers Andrew Brandon and David Silberman took charge here in fall 2024 but have decades of experience, mostly at J.P. Morgan Asset Management. They were longtime lead manager Clare Hart’s chosen successors and joined her as comanagers in 2019. Brandon started on this team in 2012 as an analyst, and Silberman is a 37-year veteran with the firm. They have solid backing, with dedicated analysts Tony Lee, Lerone Vincent, and Laura Huang and the firm’s large central analyst team.

The managers employ the same time-tested approach that dates to 2004. Specifically, they seek underappreciated companies with durable profits, good returns on capital, and a sound financial footing. The comanagers aren’t afraid to buy more cyclical firms with moderate debt levels and good growth here—making it more all-weather but less defensive than their other charge, JPMorgan Equity Income. Their edge on the competition is knowing the universe very well and being especially demanding on their standards, including valuation.

Recently, the Russell 1000 Value Index prospectus benchmark has posed a challenge to this strategy—as well as many of its peers. During its latest June 2026 rebalancing, it featured large shifts at the top of the index. Russell expelled Google and Micron Technology, plus a bunch of other artificial intelligence beneficiaries such as Sandisk, totaling more than 12% of the index, while it added Magnificent Seven names Apple and Microsoft with 9% of the index’s weighting and boosted Amazon.com by more than 4 percentage points. Such shifts are too big to prudently ignore, but here the managers didn’t liquidate all the index’s expulsions; they halved the stakes in Analog Devices, Western Digital, and Alphabet. As of June 2026, they roughly doubled existing stakes in Amazon and Microsoft and devoted more than 3% of assets to Apple, a new holding.

Over the current managers’ nearly two-year stint through August 2026, the US mutual fund institutional shares’ 15.7% annualized return has lagged the typical large-value Morningstar Category peers’ 16.4% mark as well as the Russell 1000 Value Index’s 20.0% gain. From its 2004 inception, however, its outperformance over category peers has been impressive, and it’s also topped the index. It doesn’t look so hot right now, but the strategy’s 20-plus-year history of outperformance justifies patience.

This strategy’s sensible, effective approach earns an Above Average Process 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 an equity-income sibling that seeks dividends; 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 that it believes are trading at discounts 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 produces 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 sector exposures fairly close to the Russell 1000 Value Index’s (they technically allow industry group weightings to vary by up to 10 percentage points, though). The managers successfully strive to keep the portfolio opportunistic, and its focus on stock selection has paid off over time.

The comanagers strive to top the Russell 1000 Value Index and typically try to keep unintended divergences from the index to a minimum. The index’s rebalance at the end of June 2026 was massive, sending a bunch of semiconductor firms, memory names, and Alphabet out and lifting the stakes in Magnificent Seven stocks. In June 2026, the managers halved the portfolio’s 7% collective weighting in Analog Devices, Western Digital, and Alphabet. Meanwhile, they doubled the total stake in Amazon and Microsoft to 8% from 4%. And they added enough of Apple to make it the portfolio’s third-largest position.

The managers strive to keep sector stakes close to the benchmark: The June 2026 portfolio was within 2 percentage points in 10 of the 11 sectors. Its most meaningful underweighting was in consumer staples, by nearly 3 percentage points; it was also underweight in technology. Its largest, but still modest, overweightings were in industrials, financials, and healthcare.

In small sectors, the managers tend to buy just a few holdings to get near the index’s weighting. For instance, the Russell 1000 Value Index had a 5.5% energy weighting spread across 33 companies as of June. This portfolio had a 4.6% stake, but in just three companies: Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and EOG Resources. Similarly, the portfolio had a nearly 4% stake in materials spread across four firms. The smart philosophy here is to take meaningful stakes in a handful of sector constituents the managers trust the most.

The managing duo and their analysts earn an Above Average People rating. Comanagers Andy Brandon and David Silberman have run the strategy as a pair only since September 2024, but that understates their experience with the portfolio and each other. They became named managers here in November 2019, working with longtime lead manager Clare Hart. Brandon started on this team in 2012 as an analyst. Silberman, a 37-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 the financials that the retired manager Hart had long covered. All three analysts came from the firm’s central analyst group. This five-person team also has access to the firm’s 21-person central analyst team; its members average more than 25 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.

To date, the new managers have had subpar results.

In the two years since taking charge (Sept. 5, 2024, through Aug. 31, 2026), the US mutual fund’s institutional shares gained 15.7% annualized, lagging the typical large-value category peer’s 16.4% rise and the Russell 1000 Value Index’s 20.0% return. Over the long term, this stable strategy has been in the top quartile over the past 10 years and nearly top decile over the last 15 years, mainly on former skipper Clare Hart’s watch. There’s no reason it can’t return to form.

The first half of 2026 illustrates a key challenge for the strategy. The managers have had a cautious underweighting in technology; as of June 2026, its 17.2% weighting was 1.4 percentage points below the Russell 1000 Value Index’s. Within that sector, the strategy overweighted Western Digital, which gained 270%, and Texas Instruments, which leapt 73%. That said, it underweighted Sandisk, up 780%, and Micron, up 299%. All told, it lagged in that one area by 2.8 percentage points. It seems unlikely such a strong headwind will continue forever.

Investors should be aware that this strategy is neither strongly defensive nor bold. It has outperformed in four of the five Russell 1000 Value Index bull markets since 2004, the lone exception being the current run starting in October 2022. In the five bear markets, it outperformed in three and slightly lagged in two.

JPMorgan Large Cap Value A's Prospectus Adjusted Expense Ratio is 0.93% 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 -0.73, 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.