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The following is a stock style box. It defines a fund that mainly invests in growth large-cap stocks. These are stocks such as Intel, Cisco, or AOL: large-cap stocks with high growth potential but at the same time somewhat risky. By inspecting this box you might be able to tell that as you move from the upper left to the lower right of the style box, the risk of the fund increases but so does its return potential. More specifically, cells 1, 2, 4 represent low-risk funds, cells 3, 5, 7 represent medium-risk funds, and cells 6, 8, 9 represent high-risk funds. In this style box, our fund has a medium risk and a medium return potential.

Stock Style Box

The style box for bond funds is somewhat similar to that of the stock funds. The horizontal axis defines the average maturity length of the bonds invested in, while the vertical axis defines their quality (remember Moody’s ratings). Here is an example of a bond fund’s style box: …