American Funds Conservative Growth and Income Portfolio Class ABLE-F-2 CIQGX

American Funds Growth and Income series’ topnotch management team, distinguished objectives-based approach, and excellent lineup of underlying funds help these portfolios stand out as a strong choice in the competitive target-risk arena. The series’ four portfolios are available as model portfolios and separate accounts, while the Conservative Growth and Income, Moderate Growth and Income, and Growth and Income portfolios are also offered as mutual funds.

A seven-member portfolio solutions committee guides the series and benefits from portfolio managers with expertise in multi-asset, equity, and fixed-income investing. Multi-asset manager Samir Mathur has chaired the committee since its formation in 2020, and the management team holds an average of 31 years of industry experience, many with long tenures at Capital Group. A 17-person analyst team from the capital solutions group supports the committee. The team started with just three analysts after a 2020 revamp, and the firm continues to thoughtfully invest in its growth.

This series seeks to deliver capital appreciation and current income, offered in four portfolios: Conservative Income and Growth (35% equity/65% fixed income), Conservative Growth and Income (50%/50%), Moderate Growth and Income (65%/35%), and Growth and Income (75%/25%). Unlike competing offerings, the team allocates to the different roles that asset classes can play in a portfolio rather than just industry-standard risk/return levels, paying sharp attention to the portfolios’ overall objectives. Thorough multi-asset research forms the bedrock of the approach, with the team delving into specific asset classes and investment themes, such as the utility of fixed income in portfolios and distinct kinds of dividend-paying companies in recent years. The strategy boasts an exceptional lineup of underlying funds; these actively managed American Funds strategies all earn Morningstar Medalist Ratings of Bronze, Silver, or Gold as of August 2026.

Management emphasizes longer-term strategic asset allocations rather than shorter-term tactical ones, though it can make some marginal changes each year. Long-term capital market expectations, a proprietary optimization tool, and the team’s research inform changes that aim to keep each portfolio in line with its objectives. The team largely leaves sub-asset-class allocations up to the underlying managers, playing to the firm’s strength of fundamental research.

This series’ distinctive approach to asset allocation and portfolio construction, underpinned by keen attention to portfolio objectives and deep asset-class research, supports a High Process rating.

This series benefits from the full breadth of the team’s multi-asset capabilities, leading to thoughtfully built portfolios. Management allocates the portfolios by objectives rather than simply scaling the stock/bond split across each portfolio in the series. The oversight committee assigns assets to categories such as “growth” (growth stocks) and “income” (bonds). The team’s multi-asset research enriches this approach. In recent years, the team has explored the role fixed income plays in a portfolio, spawning four new lenses for its proprietary portfolio optimizer tool. It has also examined different types of dividend-paying companies, helping diversify exposures.

The managers review each portfolio at least annually and lean on the underlying strategies to drive shorter-term shifts, playing to the firm’s strength of bottom-up analysis. They prefer flexible strategies like American Funds American Balanced, which can opportunistically tilt between equity and fixed income, and American Funds Multi-Sector Income, which can nimbly invest across credit sectors, including high-yield and emerging-market debt.

While these portfolios are connected by a similar growth-and-income objective, management pays individual attention to each portfolio and its objectives. Updates made to the portfolios in April 2026 exhibit management’s thoughtful positioning and asymmetric exposures. For example, the team modestly increased exposure to non-US stocks and bonds across the series, reflecting a desire for greater global diversification and a view that the US dollar could weaken further. These moves were among several well-researched, portfolio-specific adjustments.

In the more aggressive Growth and Income and Moderate Growth and Income portfolios, the team added new allocations to emerging-market stock fund American Funds New World, at 3% and 2%, respectively. The team also added American Funds Emerging Markets Bond Fund at a 2% weighting in each, giving both portfolios dedicated emerging-market exposure.

In the Conservative Growth and Income and Conservative Income and Growth portfolios, the team refrained from adding dedicated emerging-market stock exposure, instead raising the weighting of American Funds Capital World Growth and Income Fund, a core global stock fund, by two percentage points in each, to 9% and 7%, respectively. The team already held American Funds Emerging Markets Bond Fund in these portfolios and increased that stake by 1 percentage point, to 4% and 3%, respectively.

The team lowered allocations to US-focused funds to accommodate these additions, such as American Funds Growth Fund of America in the Growth and Income portfolio, American Balanced in Moderate Growth and Income, and American Mutual in the two more conservative portfolios.

This series’ topnotch management team, strong lineup of underlying funds, and deep analyst bench underpin its High People Pillar rating.

Capital Group’s multi-asset resources have quickly strengthened and grown since the team’s 2020 revamp. At that time, the portfolio solutions committee, which oversees this series, began focusing its efforts on the firm’s fund-of-funds strategies. Samir Mathur, a multi-asset portfolio manager, chairs the committee. Six other portfolio managers, each with at least 26 years of industry experience, join him. The comanagers bring unique asset-class expertise, with two specializing in multi-asset, two in equities, and two in fixed income. This cross-asset collaboration between the seven managers allows for different perspectives to surface and leads to robust oversight of the portfolios.

The capital solutions group provides research and allocation support to the committee. The analyst team has grown meaningfully since 2020, to 17 analysts from just three. They support the day-to-day monitoring of allocations, ongoing research, and coverage of underlying funds. Analyst and research director Glenn Cagan works most closely with this series and plays a key role in ongoing research.

The series holds a strong lineup of underlying funds, with all funds used across the series earning a Morningstar Medalist Rating of Bronze, Silver, or Gold as of August 2026.

Capital Group stands out from the pack as it enhances capabilities around strong core competencies. It earns a High Parent rating.

Since 1931, Capital Group, parent of American Funds, has thoughtfully built out capabilities to become one of the world’s largest asset managers, managing more than USD 3 trillion dollars. Building on the success of its long-term-oriented, multiple-manager system for global equities, the firm has developed robust fixed-income and multi-asset units, each managing more than USD 500 billion. In January 2026, as part of its periodic review of its now five distinct research organizations, Capital Group implemented changes to its equity investment subsidiaries. This exercise resulted in most equity strategies having at least one portfolio manager change, but according to the firm, it better balances each of Capital Group’s three equity groups in terms of investment breadth and helps the firm better align leadership opportunities across the groups. These kinds of shifts have occurred before, with the last coming in 2018.

Capital Group has also turned its attention to some modern opportunities. To address public/private market convergence trends, it launched in April 2025 two semiliquid funds with private market giant KKR. In keeping with its signature portfolio management approach, it splits those funds into multiple sleeves, which are managed independently by distinct managers at each firm. Capital Group plans to deepen this relationship with target-date and model portfolios, as well as public/private equity funds. On the other end of the spectrum, although the firm is firmly dedicated to active management, it has also acknowledged investor preference for passive investing and has thus partnered with indexing stalwarts Vanguard, BlackRock, and Schwab on active/passive models. Capital Group’s proven investment prowess, strong reputation among investors, and scale mean it can be selective with its partnerships.

In addressing another recent trend, since early 2022, the firm has launched more than 25 active exchange-traded funds globally, most of which are distinct, but several are similar to some of its legacy American Funds mutual funds. Unlike some of its peers, though, it has not filed for SEC exemptive relief to offer ETFs as a share class.

That’s a lot of change for such a storied and sizable firm, but Capital Group has a long history of serving investors well.

Three of this series’ four portfolios hold a strong track record. Since launching as mutual funds in May 2012, the Conservative Growth and Income, Moderate Growth and Income, and Growth and Income portfolios’ R6 share classes bested their respective Morningstar Category medians and Morningstar target-risk index benchmarks by at least 85 basis points annualized through July 2026. The Conservative Growth and Income portfolio performed especially well versus peers, outpacing 92% of its peer group over the period. Risk-adjusted returns also impressed. Each portfolio’s Sharpe ratio, a measure of risk-adjusted return, fell in the top quintile of its category over the period. The Conservative Income and Growth portfolio’s results have been less impressive. Since its September 2021 inception, the portfolio’s 6% return fell in line with the moderately conservative-allocation category median.

The portfolios’ distinguishing characteristics and underlying funds have contributed to these overall strong results over time. More large-cap equity exposure, which topped smaller-market-cap companies since inception, helped boost results. The Conservative Growth and Income and Growth and Income portfolios also typically hold more equity exposure than peers, which aided performance thanks to equity’s strong returns throughout most of the period. The Conservative Income and Growth portfolio tends to hold fewer equities than the average peer, so it may lag during environments when stocks are rallying. However, this could lead to less volatility over time and shallower drawdowns than peers and benchmarks in stress periods.

American Funds Cnsrv Gr & Inc ABLE-F-2's Prospectus Adjusted Expense Ratio is 0.33% per year. It places it in the cheapest quintile of the Morningstar US Fund Moderately Conservative Allocation Category, where the median fee is 0.91% per year. This cost positioning translates into a Medalist Rating Price Score of 2.25, 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.