Barron’s does an annual mutual fund family survey which, of course, uses returns as a key metric.

The survey has to make investors wonder why anyone would put money outside of several well-known fund families. Near the top of this year’s list are Franklin Templeton (BEN), T Rowe Price (TROW), Janus (JNS), Vanguard, and Schwab (SCHW). Several other fund companies including American Funds and Eaton Vance (EV) do very well

Some other household names did badly. These include Putnam, Fidelity, Van Kampen, and Calvert.

The noteworthy thing about the survey is to compare the one year survey with the data going back five years and ten years. High in the five year rankings are Franklin Templeton, T. Rowe Price, American Funds, Janus, and Schwab. Over ten years, the upper level of the rankings includes American Funds, T Rowe Price, Eaton Vance, Vanguard, and Schwab.

Perhaps mutual fund investors are slow to learn, but funds like Calvert stay on the bottom, no matter what the time line. The magic is how they manage to keep their customers.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.