Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) aims to offer financial services pertaining to investment advice and portfolio management to a wide range of investors including individual investors, intermediaries and institutional clients. This New York-based company, which was founded in 1918 by Andrew Carnegie, has a major portion of its assets allocated to stocks and fixed income securities.

TIAA Global Asset Management had $938 billion assets under management invested in a wide range of securities. The issuer has investments in more than 50 countries and an array of mutual funds including both equity and fixed-income funds, and U.S. and non-U.S. funds. In 2017, the fund family received Lipper’s Best Overall Large Fund Company award for five consecutive years.

Below we share with you four top-ranked TIAA Mutual Funds. Each has earned a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and is expected to outperform its peers in the future. Investors can click here to see the complete list of TIAA Mutual Funds.

TIAA-CREF Bond Plus Retail (TCBPX - Free Report) invests the majority of its assets in bonds including different types of fixed-income securities. The fund’s portfolio is divided into two segments. The first segment holds more than 70% of fund’s assets which are invested in a wide variety of fixed-income securities and investment-grade bonds. The second segment has around 30% of its assets invested in fixed-income debt securities with special qualities. TIAA-CREF Bond Plus Retail has a one-year return of 2.7%.

TCBPX has an expense ratio of 0.63% compared with the category average of 0.78%. 

TIAA-CREF Managed Allocation Fund Retail (TIMRX - Free Report) seeks a high level of returns. TIMRX, also known as a "fund of funds" invests about 60% of its assets in equity underlying funds which include almost 5% of its assets in real estate underlying funds; and about 40% of its assets in fixed-income underlying funds. TIAA-CREF Managed Allocation Fund Retail has returned 13.6% in the last one-year period.

As of May 2017, TIMRX held 15 issues, with 39.07% of its assets invested in TIAA-CREF Bond Plus Inst.

TIAA-CREF Large-Cap Value Premier (TRCPX - Free Report) seeks returns over the long run primarily through growth of capital. TRCPX invests the lion’s share of its assets in equity securities of large-cap companies, which are expected to be undervalued. The fund invests in companies as defined by the fund's benchmark Russell 1000 Value Index. TIAA-CREF Large-Cap Value Premier has returned 18.1% in the last one-year period.

Richard Cutler is one of the fund managers of TRCPX since 2002.     

TIAA-CREF Real Estate Securities Fund Premier (TRRPX - Free Report) heavily invests in equity securities issued by companies engaged in the real estate industry. TRRPX may also invest almost 15% of its assets in real estate securities of non-U.S. issuers and almost one-fifth of its assets in equity and debt securities of issuers that are not related to the real estate industry.  TIAA-CREF Real Estate Securities Fund Premier has returned 6.6% in the last one-year period.

TRRPX has an expense ratio of 0.65% compared with the category average of 1.24%.