Balanced Fund

A fund that combines a stock component, a bond component and, sometimes, a money market component, in a single portfolio. Generally, these hybrid funds stick to a relatively fixed mix of stocks and bonds that reflects either a moderate (higher equity component) or conservative (higher fixed-income component) orientation.

Investopedia Says:
A balanced fund is geared toward investors who are looking for a mixture of safety, income and modest capital appreciation. The amounts that such a mutual fund invests into each asset class usually must remain within a set minimum and maximum.

Although they are in the "asset allocation" family, balanced fund portfolios do not materially change their asset mix. This is unlike life-cycle, target-date, and actively managed asset-allocation funds, which make changes in response to an investor's changing risk-return appetite and age, or overall investment market conditions.

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