Posts Tagged ‘Investor’

Mutual Funds Defined

Thursday, December 30th, 2010

Young investors who are just starting with our a savings program will find that their friends, family and advisors will almost all have different views about how one should start to invest their money. For some, recommendations will come along the lines of buying real estate that can be flipped or rented out to generate monthly income and long-term capital appreciation. For others, it will mean putting as much money away as possible into a low-paying CD or maybe even mutual funds.

But for as many people who recommend funds, an equal amount will dismiss them for a variety of reasons. The three most common reasons people advise against funds are also the three ways that one can get a better understanding of what a mutual fund really is, a three-way definition as it were.

1. Mutual Funds are too risky. Although every fund, from money market funds, income funds all the way to equity funds and specialty funds will involve some element of risk, the fact remains that virtually every fund actually reduces risk. How? Through diversification. What this means is that a mutual fund takes all of your money (and every one else’s) and invests in enough securities that anyone with less than $500,000 could never even imagine achieving. And since diversification is key to eliminating risk, saying that mutual funds are too risky is like saying air travel is dangerous. Risk is relative and in terms of reducing that risk, mutual funds achieve it better than any other investment.

2. Funds are expensive. Depending on the amount of money invested, most people cannot find better value for every dollar invested than they can when they invest in mutual funds. While the fund companies generate an expense for their administrative efforts, they almost always come in cheaper than investing individually through a discount broker. With most fees at 1% or less, an investor with just $10,000 to invest could only make 10 trades in 1 year at $10 each to achieve the same cost savings. This tells us that funds are owned by so many different unit holders that the collective pays a reduced fee, not the individual investor.

3. People who invest in Funds lost 50% of their savings when the market crashed. While many people certainly lost much of their portfolio’s value thanks to the recent market crash of 2007-2009, funds actually offer enough different flavors of funds that smart, properly diversified investors would have lost much less than nearly any other type of investor. Between high yield investments, money market funds and specialty asset class funds, investors can find properly diversified investments for any and every need they may have. There is an abundance of selection; one does not need to be limited to domestic stock market-linked investments.

As shown here in the three most common arguments against this type of investment, mutual funds are basically highly diversified, risk-spread investments that, while they charge expenses, are cheaper than virtually any other type of investment out there. Best of all, mutual funds can be virtually any asset class, not just equities, providing investors with plenty of options.

How to Make Money From Mutual Funds?

Thursday, October 7th, 2010

Most of the investors anxious about their hard earnings, their thinking mostly walked on how they securely invest and get money from that. Although a Mutual Fund Is not at all risk free investment, but using some features of it investors can mitigate the risk from their investments.

Appropriate withdrawal strategy of Mutual Funds is very important for ever investor.

First and probably the good number of investors will choose SIP Systematic Investment Plan) because of its systematic investment approach and fewer overall investment risk. Now, the question is – can an investor reduce the risk by withdrawing the amount? Well, I think not, but here are some strategies that mostly used in the financial market.

Systematic Withdrawal Plan (SWP) – the name suggests, investors can withdraw amount each month. However, before going this option, investors must check – equity scheme and debt scheme are not same terms. This feature mostly works on debt oriented funds.

Systematic Transfer Plan (STP) – this is a variation of SWP, it follows the same principles, except withdrawal of the fund, this option will transfer specific amount to one fund to another.

Trigger – one of the popular strategies is – someone sells his/her funds when it touches a certain percentage of return. But the risk is – it is not possible for common people, to monitor the market and grab the perfect percentage.

A good number of financial advisors suggests, handling those situations using this option. Using this feature, investors can set a limit and the fund is redeemed when the limit is touched. Hopefully, this is the best option to protect investments.

Avijit Majumder

Best Performing Mutual Funds – The Profitable Way to Diversify

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Best Performing Mutual Funds – The Profitable Way to Diversify Your Portfolio

You can diversify your portfolio by adding the best performing mutual funds, which are groups of stocks instead of individual stocks. Another advantage is that a professional fund manager, whose livelihood depends on how his fund performs, defines the assortment of companies that you are investing in. The issue with these types of funds is that there is an expense involved since you are required to pay for the fund’s management, which is automatically deducted from the value of the fund. Additional charges and fees can negatively affect the income your investment generates. Before investing in anything, even when investing in the best performing mutual funds, you need to take a bit of time figuring out the possible expenses that are charged by the fund.

One source of information about investing is Morningstar.com.The best performing mutual funds can be easily located using this resource. The website offers plenty of free information, and the top performing funds are divided into categories which you can look at to find the funds based on your investment preference. The best performing funds are listed on the left margin of the site.

MSN’s Money website is another site that I utilize in obtaining information about the best performing mutual funds. Similar to Morningstar, this website offers worthwhile data about the top performing funds; however, it’s the Expert Picks area which is most helpful. Mutual fund research is made even better by letting you to stand behind a professional fund manager so that he oversees a portfolio in real time!

In order to get a hold to some comprehensive statistics, an investor might have to sign up for some financial assessment websites or submit an entry fee to acquire a membership. A person will be able to access and assess this information on their own or could enlist the help of a personal financial counselor to choose the most outstanding companies with the best performing mutual funds, which are chosen based on their professional capability and experience.

In the end, the brokerage house or investment firm is an additional resource from which you could obtain details about the best performing mutual funds. You can also have an account there as let their professionals manage your portfolio for you. As obvious as it may seem, there is a lot of data that is given to clients by their online brokerage firms that is often overlooked. Check out the brokerage firm’s site for recommendations they regularly offer.


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