July 2007

Mutual Funds News

Investing in fewer mutual funds gives you more focus
If you could own just four mutual funds, which would they be?

Hotel buyouts a bonanza for many mutual funds
Hotel buyouts are proving a bonanza for mutual funds which snapped up Hilton, Marriott and other hotel stocks after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Tom Roseen, Lipper's senior research analyst, said it was uncommon for mutual funds to hold investments for six years as managers feel compelled to buy and sell because they are paid fees.

Guide to mutual fund categories
These tables rank the top-performing stock and bond mutual funds for the first quarter of 2007 for each of the main investment categories as defined by research firm Morningstar Inc., which provided the data for these tables. The tables of top-performing funds are followed by individual performance figures for 5,400 mutual funds, organized by fund company.

Bull rush on for snails pace return
Mutual funds want stable-value products, including their own money-market mutual funds, excluded as a stand-alone option. Science might be on the side of the mutual funds, but the Bush administration is not always swayed by science.

Do ETFs offer a better return than actively managed funds?
I recently estimated the fees I've paid on my mutual funds over the past five years and was taken aback by how much I've paid out. Exchange-traded funds, or ETFs for short, have been tirelessly marketed as the low-cost alternative to actively managed mutual funds and they've really caught on with penny-pinching investors.

Deciphering your funds is a necessary first step
With mutual funds, a rose is hardly ever just a rose. But the second line is informative: The asset allocation service achieves its investment objective by investing in a combination of National Bank mutual funds and National Bank/Fidelity mutual funds.

News - US mutual funds under attack
New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer has said his office has found evidence of illegal trading by mutual funds which leaves their shareholders out of pocket. Mr Spitzer said investigations found that ordinary investors were losing out from illegal trading in mutual funds' shares.

Funds turn to infrastructure investments
Other mutual funds include Investors Global Infrastructure Class and the Criterion Infrastructure Water Fund, which invests in water-related stocks.

Small investors may have taken cautiousness a bit too far
The cautious mood that has marked this decade shows up in small investors' approach to mutual funds. *Net new cash inflows to domestic and foreign stock mutual funds totaled $84.1 billion from January through May, down 31 percent from the same period of 2006, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Choices expanding for bond investors
The first exchange-traded funds, which look like mutual funds but trade like stocks, tracked equity benchmarks like the SP 500 and the Dow. But as the market for exchange-traded funds rapidly expanded, offerings grew to include currencies and commodities.

Financial industry needs to go global: study
Finds banks, brokers and mutual funds are trailing other sectors and could lose out on opportunities in foreign markets 17.