Dodge & Cox Stock Fund

Dodge & Cox

Part of Dodge & Cox

These are Dodge & Cox Stock Fund's own holdings, not the firm's. Percentages are of the stock positions in its latest filing — the fund's cash and bonds are not included. The Dodge & Cox Stock Fund holds what its name promises: a diversified portfolio of established American companies, mostly large and mid-sized, chosen for their long-term prospects rather than their current popularity. Its managers look for solid businesses whose shares have been beaten down by temporary troubles, buy them, and then hold on for years — a patience that keeps trading activity low. It launched in January 1965, making it one of the oldest stock funds in the country, and it has stuck to that same job ever since: long-term growth of principal, with steady income as a secondary goal. The fund is a pure-equity vehicle, and that is what separates it from its stablemates at the same firm. Where Dodge & Cox's Balanced Fund mixes stocks with bonds and its International Stock Fund ranges outside the United States, the Stock Fund stays in U.S. equities alone. What it shares with those siblings is the house style — deep, bottom-up research and a contrarian streak that leads it toward out-of-favor sectors rather than whatever is hottest. No single person steers the portfolio. Investment decisions are made by the firm's U.S. Equity Investment Committee, a group of veteran analysts and professionals who are themselves owners of the firm, so every buy, sell, and position size is debated and pressure-tested rather than handed down from one star manager. With no individual name attached, the fund's identity is the process itself — and the long record that process has built over more than half a century.