Adding Mutual Funds to Your Investment Portfolio

Choosing new investments can be hard… especially if you're not a full-time trader and don't have the time that it takes to investigate several different investment opportunities while they're still hot. It would be so much easier if you could simply invest into a single fund, and have your money divided up among several good investments.

Luckily, there is a way to do just that… mutual funds. These funds are designed as a way for investors to spread out a single investment over several different types of stocks and bonds, letting you diversify your portfolio without having to do as much of the legwork.

If you're curious to learn more about mutual funds and what they can do for you, then the information that follows should be just what you're looking for.

Since mutual funds are usually already diversified, they are an excellent way to add diversity to your stock portfolio or to increase the holdings of an already-diverse portfolio.

What Mutual Funds Are

In essence, mutual funds are a way for you to invest in multiple stocks and bonds without having to individually select each investment yourself. The fund that you invest in already contains several different investments within it, usually diversified and chosen by investment professionals. This allows you to be able to make a single investment while reaping the benefits of having several smaller investments.

How Mutual Funds Work

Mutual funds work by dividing the cost of diversified investments among all of the fund's investors. All of the investors share in the gains and losses that occur with each investment in the fund, and as more people invest in the mutual fund there is more money that can be used for further investments in the stocks and bonds contained within the fund.

Each investor in the mutual fund is considered to be an owner of the stocks and other investments contained within the fund, and is usually granted the same rights, privileges, and voting powers of other owners of those same stocks and investments. In most cases, individuals can invest in or sell their investments in a mutual fund at any time.

Investing in Mutual Funds

Investing in a mutual fund works in much the same way as any other investment… the only difference is that you'll be buying into the fund instead of into a company or a bond agreement. Most investment brokerages can be used to purchase shares of a mutual fund, including many online brokerages. Should you decide to later sell your shares of the fund, the sales process is the same as it is for selling any stock or other investment.

Diversifying with Mutual Funds

Since mutual funds are usually already diversified, they are an excellent way to add diversity to your stock portfolio or to increase the holdings of an already-diverse portfolio. In order to get the most out of your diversification with mutual funds, you should take the time to investigate the fund and determine which investments you'll be purchasing should you choose to invest in that particular fund.

Ideally, you'll be looking for investments that you've either never made before or that you've only made in smaller portions; of course, if there are investments contained within the mutual fund that are performing exceptionally well for you or that you wouldn't mind having more of, feel free to invest in a fund that has stocks or other securities that you already own shares of. You are also free to invest in multiple mutual funds, so as to increase the diversity of your portfolio even more… after all, a diverse investment portfolio is a strong investment portfolio.

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John Mussi is the founder of Direct Online Loans who help homeowners find the best available loans via the http://www.directonlineloans.co.uk website.

Going Global through Mutual Funds.

There are more than 13500 different publicly traded companies in the world today, and there are over 700 more companies expected to go public within a year. In addition, every major developed country offers investors various bonds to invest in. All of this makes for a lot of different investments and plenty of choice. Investors can take advantage of this choice through a good global balanced fund that invests in bonds and stocks or a global equity fund that invests in stocks all around the world.

A global equity fund invests in stock markets around the world. These funds will have a portion of their investments invested in North America. Europe, and Asia. Some of these funds will own hundreds of securities in order to participate in the growth prospects of many firms while diversifying the risk associated with investing in different companies. A good global equity fund will be a foundation for a well-diversified mutual fund portfolio for almost any investor. Investors could consider including the AGF International Value Fund, the BPI Global Equity Fund, or the Fidelity International Portfolio Fund in their portfolios.

A global balanced fund is a fund that invests in both stock and bond markets around the world. These funds will also always have a portion of their investments invested in stock and bond markets located in North America, Europe, and Asia. They are more conservative than global equity funds because they invest in a combination of stocks and bonds, which affect the fund's performance. Over the long term these funds will provide a lower rate of return for investors but they will also exhibit a lot less risk than a global equity fund. They exhibit less risk because bonds are less volatile than stocks; they do not decline in value to the same magnitude or at the same time as global equity funds. A conservative investor should find a good global balanced fund that will serve as a good foundation for a diversified portfolio.

About the author: Tony Reed is the author of "Going global through mutual funds", please visit his website Mutual Funds & Stock Trading for more information.

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Mutual Funds

A mutual fund is perhaps one of the most popular means of long term investing and is the vehicle of choice in IRAs and 401k accounts. A mutual fund is basically a way of investing in a pool of different companies in order to minimize risk.

Market Timing With Your Mutual Funds

When investing in bonds, stocks, or mutual funds, investors have the opportunity to increase their rate of return by timing the market - investing when stock markets go up and selling before they decline. A good investor can either time the market prudently, select a good investment, or employ a combination of both to increase his or her rate of return. However, any attempt to increase your rate of return by timing the market entails higher risk. Investors who actively try to time the market should realize that sometimes the unexpected does happen and they could lose money or forgo an excellent return.

Timing the market is difficult. To be successful, you have to make two investment decisions correctly: one to sell and one to buy. If you get either wrong in the short term you are out of luck. In addition, investors should realize that:

1. Stock markets go up more often than they go down.

2. When stock markets decline they tend to decline very quickly. That is, short-term losses are more severe than short-term gains.

3. The bulk of the gains posted by the stock market are posted in a very short time. In short, if you miss one or two good days in the stock market you will forgo the bulk of the gains.

Not many investors are good timers. "The Portable Pension Fiduciary," by John H. Ilkiw, noted the results of a comprehensive study of institutional investors, such as mutual fund and pension fund managers. The study concluded that the median money manager added some value by selecting investments that outperform the market.

The best money managers added more than 2 percent per year due to stock selection. However the median money manager lost value by timing the market. Thus, investors should realize that marketing timing can add value but that there are better strategies that increase returns over the long term, incur less risk, and have a higher probability of success.

One of the reasons why it is so difficult to time correctly is due to the difficulty of removing emotion from your investment decision. Investors who invest on emotion tend to overreact: they invest when prices are high and sell when prices are low. Professional money managers, who can remove emotion from their investment decisions, can add value by timing their investments correctly, but the bulk of their excess rates of return are still generated through security selection and other investment strategies. Investors who want to increase their rate of return through market timing should consider a good Tactical Asset Allocation fund. These funds aim to add value by changing the investment mix between cash, bonds, and stocks following strict protocols and models, rather than emotion-based market timing.

About the author: Tony Reed is the author of "Market timing with your mutual funds", please visit his website Mutual Funds & Stock Trading for more information.

This article is free for republishing as long as you leave the article title, author name, body and resource box intact (means NO changes) with the links made active.

Mutual Funds and Their Risks

Investing in mutual funds is a relatively safe way of growing your net worth, but such investments are not entirely free of risks. Before you pick on any particular mutual fund for investment you should watch out for a few things.

Performance

The first thing you should look for is whether the mutual fund you are planning to invest in is outperforming or under-performing with respect to the market. Good and safe mutual funds are those that consistently outperform the market. Changes in the net asset values (NAVs) of such mutual funds are consistently one step ahead of the market. For example, if the index that measures market movements goes up, the NAV of most good and safe mutual funds will also move up at least as much as the market or even more than the market. On the other hand, when the market moves southwards, the NAV of most good and safe mutual funds will move down but such depreciation will be less than or at the most equal to the market’s downward movement. Unsafe or risky mutual funds are those where the opposite occurs – when the market moves up, the NAV of risky or unsafe mutual funds may move up less than the market and may even move down despite a bull run in the market. Such under-performing mutual funds should always be eschewed when taking an investment decision.

Churn and earn

The next thing to watch out for is whether the mutual fund is undergoing too much “churn and earn”. This means you have to check whether too many transactions by the mutual fund are resulting in higher fees or costs to the investor. In this context, the worst offenders are those mutual funds that have a lot of spurious churn. Every time a mutual fund buys or sells stocks, the broker or brokers it employs make a neat pile from the commissions. So, these brokers try to encourage a lot of churn or buying and selling of stocks by giving a kickback to the mutual fund manager. Although direct bribery is illegal, payment of soft money through a sponsored trip to Hawaii or letting the mutual fund manager have a swanky Wall Street office for $1 a month is not. The only loser in all this spurious churn is the investor, especially in cases where the small print says that the investor will have to pay the brokers’ fees as well.

Lack of clarity

Mutual Funds that have prospectus, annual reports or statements of additional information written in such a way that they are difficult to understand should also be avoided. The lack of clarity in their documents is almost a sure sign of lack of honesty in their dealings or a lack of competency in managing funds – both of which are strong reasons for avoiding them for investment purposes.

Risky and unsafe mutual funds are also characterised by having too many restrictions on how and when investors can sell or redeem their mutual fund shares. Mutual funds that have too long lock-in periods or those which slap a hefty exit load at the time of redemption should be eyed with suspicion and are likely to prove to be unsafe and risky.

Beware of scams

Finally, there are mutual funds that are outright scams. There have been reports of fund mangers selling stocks at prices other than what has been reported to the investor. For example, the fund manager may have sold stock at prices that prevailed before closing of the day’s trade although the investor is told that the transaction took place at closing prices which were lower. The manager then pockets the difference and with most such transactions involving large volumes, even a fractional price difference can lead to substantial gains for the manger. Again the only loser in all this is the investor who gets short-changed by the mutual fund operator!

Jason Hanson recommends you contact the Law Firm of Richardson, Patrick, Westbrook, and Brickman if you need a mutual funds attorney.

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