Morningstar

A Fine Core Stock Fund

A Fine Core Stock Fund
Securities In This Article
Hartford Dividend and Growth A
(IHGIX)

Alec Lucas: Bronze-rated Hartford Dividend and Growth picks its spots well.

Longtime lead manager Edward Bousa crafts a portfolio rooted in large- and mega-cap dividend-payers while making room for growth stocks and companies poised to benefit from changes in supply and demand. Bousa keeps turnover below most peers but can be opportunistic. Between early 2015 and early 2017, for example, he loaded up on banking stocks trading below book value, like current top-five holding Bank of America. He thinks the firm's aggressive cost-cutting efforts will enhance its profitability even if interest rates remain near their historic lows.

Bousa's opportunism sometimes backfires. His move into energy in 2015 proved early, and owning Marathon Oil when it cut its dividend in October of that year didn't help. Even so, the fund held its own during the 2015-16 correction. That adds to the fund's record under Bousa. From his July 2001 start date through April 2017, the fund's rolling 10-year returns are superior to the S&P 500 Index's nearly three fourths of the time. The is a fine fund for a core holding.

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About the Author

Alec Lucas

Director of Manager Research
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Alec Lucas is director of manager research, active funds research, for Morningstar Research Services LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc. He is a voting member of the Morningstar Medalist Ratings Committee for U.S. and international fixed-income strategies, covers fixed-income strategies from asset managers such as Baird and American Funds.

Lucas is also active in parent research. He is a voting member of the U.S. parent ratings committee and previously served as the lead analyst for Franklin Templeton, Capital Group, and Vanguard, among other firms.

Lucas was a strategist on Morningstar's equity strategies team prior to assuming his current role in June 2022. He covered equity strategies from asset managers such as Primecap and American Funds and received the 2019 Citywire Professional Buyer Rising Star Award.

Before joining Morningstar in 2013, Lucas worked as a minister as well as a professor for Loyola University Chicago, among other institutions. From 2010 to 2011, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Heidelberg.

Lucas holds bachelor's degrees in philosophy and classics from the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he graduated summa cum laude and with departmental honors, and a Master of Divinity, summa cum laude, from Trinity International University. He also holds a doctorate in theology, with distinction, from Loyola University Chicago and has published several articles and one book within that field.

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