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Best Mutual Funds 2010

Douglas — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 11:07:25 +0000

The Best Mutual Funds 2010 will be determined at the end of the year. What needs to be evaluated is which ones have the best prospects of having the greatest returns and which one will be consistent.
The stocks and the funds that have shown the best performances since emerging from the bear market are the large growth large cap sector. This is what a great deal of the professional investment consolers are suggesting, but the mid and small cap and emerging market funds are prime for steady performance as well. By always following the trend with that of the majority of the investors, your rise and fall is predictable. The greater the risks, the better chance of having your portfolio performance exceed your expectations. While Vanguard and Fidelity have the largest selection of funds, they are not the only good investment firms available today.
There is a mid-cap fund that has shown good performance and has been consistent for a number of years now. This is the Westport Fund WPFRX. This fund has had a solid performance for the past decade with a return of 6.82% and outperformed the S&P by 7.34% in that same time period. This might not seem like much but the last year’s return was 40.50%. This fund has been rated by Morningstar as a low risk with high returns and has received a 5 rating for most of its existence. The expense ratio is relatively high at 1.37% and the minimum investment is only $2500.
The Fairholme Fund FAIRX is another often overlooked mutual fund that has had a decade of solid performance of 14.35% return and outperformed the S&P 500 by 14.87%. With this performance along with an annualized return last year of 58.85%, Morning star still has this fund as a high risk and high return performer. This is a large cap value blend fund that has earned a 5 star rating from Morningstar in its entire existence. An expense ratio of 1.01% and a minimum investment of $10,000 might be part of the reason it is not a part of many investors portfolios, but it should be.
Another mutual fund that does not receive much fan fare is the AIM Mid Cap Core Equity Fund. This fund has had a 10 year performance of 6.04% and outperformed the S&P 500 by 6.55% over that same period. This fund is just short of being a large cap fund and near the line of blend and growth with a low risk level but return is above average. For almost its entire existence, it has received a 5 star rating from Morningstar. The expense ratio is higher than most at 1.25% but the minimum investment is $1000.
You could follow the trend of making a large part of your portfolio with the favorite large cap large growth funds like the Prime Odyssey Growth Fund. This fund attempts to match returns of the Vanguard Prime Cap Core Fund, which is closed to investors. This fund has had a return of 5.04% over the past 5 years and outperformed the S&P 500 by 4.71% in that same time frame. This fund is considered an average risk with above average returns and an overall rating of 5 stars from Morningstar. The expense ratio of this fund is at a low 0.71% and it only takes a $2000 minimum investment to join.
Mark Hulbert of the Hulbert Financial Digest has a few words about Morningstar and its ratings and the lists they produce, “Morningstar has a lot of smart people who are trying their best, and who are smart statisticians”. He went on to further his thoughts about any top list of funds with “What they are revealing with these lists is just how difficult it is for any of us to identify top performers, even among funds with absolutely fabulous track records, picking next year’s winners is tough”.
Do not use any one list you find as a blueprint for your portfolio. Large cap and growth funds is a great base, but they should not be 100%. Remember today’s small company many be tomorrow’s giant like what Microsoft and Google did.
Some investment counselors think the Best Mutual Funds 2010 lists are just a gimmick. In truth, they are a well thought out suggestion to assist investors in making a very complex decision. From all the mutual funds that are available, everyone knows this is a difficult task that no one gets perfectly right.

Best Bond ETFs

author — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:57:10 +0000

Exchange Traded Funds, known as ETF, are a major investment option though many people do not venture into this trade. ETF are similar to mutual funds but have much dissimilarity as well. The best bond ETF is quite different from the mutual funds for they have low expenses and offer greater trading control that ultimately translates into higher profits.

The bond ETF option by Vanguard is currently one of the best products in the market. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF covers all aspects of the stock market and offers the broadest rates of return; it was 31% in 2009.

ETF bond for Mega Caps, under Vanguard Mega Cap 300 Growth ETF, offers considerable investment options. This bond consists of the largest companies in the United States and thus offers the highest rates of return. With an expense ratio of 0.13%, the fund saw a growth of over 36% in 2009; this is a major rate of return for this scale of investment.

Vanguard Europe Pacific ETF is a profitable investment option where customers can invest around one-fifth of their total stock options. Expense ratio for this fund is 0.16% and the rate of return was 32% in 2009.

Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock ETF has an expense ratio of 0.27% and the fund saw a massive growth of 79% in 2009. Vanguard REIT Index ETF also offers a relatively profitable field of investment with 0.15% in expense ratios and rate of return upwards of 35%.

Emerging Markets Stock ETF (VWO)

Douglas — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:35:32 +0000

The Emerging Markets Stock ETF or VWO has investments in the emerging large-cap markets. With a majority of the holdings in foreign stocks, the developing markets are fully covered with explosive potential like China.
There are 766 different stocks in this funds holding with the top 10 accounting for 14.67% of the total assets. Of those top 10, 4 are in China which includes China Mobile Ltd, China Construction Bank Corp., Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and China Life Insurance Co. With China about to obtain the status of the second largest consumer market in the world, having an investment there can be beneficial to your overall portfolio. The assets by markets as a percent of assets is China with 15%, Brazil with 13.8%, South Korea with 11.7%, Taiwan with 10.9%, and India with 7.4%.
Morningstar has rated this fund with 4 stars with an average risk and above average returns. The performance of this fund was 76.29% of the market return for the year 2009.
There is over $33.9 billion of total assets in this fund that has an expense ratio of only 0.27%, which makes this fund one of the cheapest in its sector.
The different sectors this fund has distributed the assets are 24.7% in financial services, 18.9% in industrial materials, 14.8% in energy, 10.6% in telecommunications, and 9.8% in consumer goods.
While no one can predict where these markets are heading, China has reported an 8.7% growth to their economy for the year 2009. This is better than the rest of the world. Investment there might be risky, but along with the risk comes potential profits.
When it comes to mutual funds and their chance for profit, the Emerging Markets Stock ETF has the best chance to shine at the current time.

Fidelity Index Funds List

author — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:42:07 +0000

Today, we are going to look at the best Fidelity has to offer from the Fidelity index list. A favorite amongst some investors, Fidelity index funds are always a promising option for returns. Here at Best Mutual Funds Now, we’re going to look at the best Fidelity index funds and show you how they’re doing.

Index funds are funds which strive to match a specific return using a certain market index as their goal line. Some Fidelity index funds will be based on the S&P 500, for instance, while others might use the MSCI or Dow Jones Wilshire 5000. Enhanced index funds will attempt to outperform the benchmark index.

The best Fidelity index funds are broken into three categories: stock indexes, bond indexes, and enhanced.

Fidelity Index Funds – Stock
Amongst the stock indexes from the Fidelity index list, top performers for the past year have been:

Fidelity Nasdaq Composit (FNCMX): 2.31% up, 2.85% up over 5 years
Spartan International Index Advantage (FSIVX): 1.86% up, 6.14% up over 5 years
Spartan International Index Investor (FSIIX): 1.80% up, 6.11% up over 5 years

Fidelity Index Funds – Bonds
In the Fidelity index list for bonds, top performers for the past year have been:

Fidelity U.S. Bond (FBIDX): 10.02% up, 4.60% up over 5 years
Spartan Long-Term Treasury Advantage (FLBAX): 8.76% up, 7.81% up over 5 years
Spartan Long-Term Treasury Investor (FLBIX): 8.66% up, 7.71% up over 5 years

Fidelity Index Funds – Enhanced
This leaves the enhanced indexes, which are ranked year-to-date (YTD) rather than for one full year. Best Fidelity index funds (enhanced) performers so far:

Fidelity Mid Cap Enhanced (FMEIX): 31.96% up YTD, -1.05% for the past year
Fidelity Large Cap Enhanced (FLGEX): 28.15% up YTD, -1.55% for the past year
Fidelity International Enhanced (FIENX): 24.94% up YTD, -2.26% for the past year

Of course, past performance does not guarantee future values.

Fidelity Mid-Cap Stock Fund (FKMCX) Review

author — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:02:02 +0000

The Fidelity FKMCX fund is a popular one mainly because of its ability to perform over time. Like most funds, of course, it loses in the short-run relatively often, but gains over the longer term in a steady way. So we here at Best Mutual Funds Now had to give it a look.

The Fidelity Mid-Cap Stock Fund’s current manager, Shep Perkins, has been on the job for almost 5 years. During that time, the fund has seen general losses over the last year (as have most funds), but still shows gains over the last five. Management fees and turnover rates in our FKMCX review are much lower than averages for this type of fund, however, which is usually a good sign.

Over a three month term, he fund has gained significantly with a total gain of about 6% in that time period. Three months, however, is not much of a window to consider, but it shows the current apparent trend to be generally upwards.

Looking at the past year, however, the fund is coming from a significant low point (around 12 points in mid-November 2008) to build upwards to its current point level of about 23 points. This general gain began in early March of 2009 and has been generally upwards since.

The Fidelity FKMCX high point was in mid-2007 when the fund hit the 34 point level, then began to drop with the economic climate failing through to late 2008. Compared to other, similar funds, the Fidelity Mid-Cap Stock Fund has done about average in its performance during that five year period, though it has performed slightly better than average for the past six months.

Overall, the Fidelity FKMCX is about average on the whole. Our FKMCX review shows that the mutual fund is not necessarily better or worse than most other, similar funds.

Best Index Funds vs. Managed Funds

nittany — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 11:17:41 +0000

Many investors often ask themselves, should I buy the best index funds or the best managed mutual funds. This is a very big dilemma that people face. Hopefully after reading this article, you have a clearer game plan for buying the best index funds or buying the best managed mutual funds.

Advantages of investing in managed mutual funds:

Most people want their investments to perform better than the stock market averages. Only through the use of a managed fund will you get better performance than the stock market averages or whatever market your fund is based on. The biggest advantage for investing in managed mutual funds is that you get a expert mutual fund manager who is actively managing your money. The mutual fund manager will be researching which stocks will perform best given the goals of the fund. The mutual fund manager will also be researching when it is best to sell the stocks that comprise the assets of the mutual fund. But, does this active management make managed funds the best mutual funds?

Advantages of the best index funds:

While managed funds have active management does this really increase the likelihood of better performance? From what I have read, the answer seems to be no. This section of the article will highlight the advantage of index fund investing.

One of the biggest reasons why the best index funds tend to outperform managed funds is that they have lower fees. If the mutual fund is taking less of the money from the assets to pay the fund, this keeps more of your money making money as opposed to paying salaries. There is very little evidence that mutual funds with higher fees perform better than funds with lower fees.

However, I want to point out that there are still a lot of managed funds with low fees. You can read about some of these funds in these articles, Vanguard Equity Income Fund review and the Vanguard Wellesley Income mutual fund.

Besides low fees, what are some other advantages of investing in index funds?

When you invest in an index fund, you know exactly what investments the fund is going to buy. Since the funds track an index, you don’t have to worry that the mutual fund managers will actually be investing in other investments. While a mutual fund has an investment strategy, only with an index fund to you know what you are going to get.

Index funds tend to pay less in taxes. As you pay less in taxes, more of your money is making money as opposed to paying Uncle Sam. This can make a huge difference on your mutual fund performance.

So which is best, index funds or managed funds? I personally think that index funds are best, but there are managed funds that perform better. The problem is that it is hard to predict which fund will actually outperform the market. Therefore, I invest mostly in index funds, but invest a portion in managed funds.

As you know, here at Best Mutual Funds Now, we love the Vanguard mutual fund. Some of the best index funds are Vanguard index funds. There are many reviews of Vanguard funds here so check them out.

How Do Mutual Funds Work

nittany — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 01:09:18 +0000

Before you can begin looking for the best mutual funds, you need to understand how do mutual funds work. A lot of beginning investors have a problem coming up with enough money to start buying stocks and bonds. In addition to the money, beginning investors can’t afford to put all of their savings in one company’s stocks or bonds. This is where mutual funds become a perfect investment. This article will explain how do mutual funds work.

What is a mutual fund?

Mutual funds allow investors to pull their money with other investors to allow the collective to purchase a diversified amount of stocks or bonds. Mutual funds are managed by professional fund managers who decide which stocks or bonds they will purchase with the investors’ money. In exchange for these professional financial services, fund managers charge a small fee for their time and expertise.

What are the the benefits of mutual funds?

Diversification – By investing in a mutual fund you automatically diversify your portfolio because the mutual fund buys a larger number of stocks.
Low management fees – You can often find mutual fund managers who charge low fees for their services.
Expert financial advice – You get the benefit of having professional fund managers to invest your money for you. These managers are highly trained and you get their expert research and buying skills for very low management fees.
Low initial buy in – Many mutual funds do not require you to invest much money to get started investing. This is great for a beginning investor.

Hopefully, this article on how do mutual funds work gave you a good initial understand of what is a mutual fund. Best Mutual Funds Now will not only try to find the top mutual funds, we will write many personal finance articles designed to teach you all about investing in mutual funds. There will be many more article teaching you how do mutual funds work.