WHAT IS A MUTUAL FUND?
A mutual fund is an open-ended fund operated by an investment company, which raises money from shareholders and invests in a group of assets, in accordance with a stated set of objectives. Mutual funds raise money by selling shares of the fund to the public, much like any other type of company can sell stock in itself to the public. Mutual funds then take the money they receive from the sale of their shares (along with any money made from previous investments) and use it to purchase various investment vehicles, such as stocks, bonds and money market instruments. In return for the money they give to the fund when purchasing shares, shareholders receive an equity position in the fund and, in effect, in each of its underlying securities. Benefits of mutual funds include diversification and professional money management.
Our Take: Recent studies have concluded that the over 85% of mutual funds CANNOT beat the annual return of the S&P 500. So much for professional money management. In addition, mutual funds are expensive, with front end commissions and several “hidden fees,” that the average Joe has no clue about. And your performance is dependent on the fund manager buying and selling the right securities at just the right time. And fund managers do not get bonuses due to good performance; they get bonuses only based on the amount of dollars coming into the fund. So all their efforts go into getting as many people to buy into their funds as possible. Also, very few of the strategies on this site can be applied to mutual funds.
WHAT IS AN EXCHANGE TRADED FUND (ETF)?
An ETF is a fund that tracks an index, but can be traded like a stock. ETFs always bundle together the securities that are in an index. Investors can do just about anything with an ETF that they can do with a normal stock, such as short selling. Because ETFs are traded on stock exchanges, they can be bought and sold at any time during the day (unlike most mutual funds).
Their price will fluctuate from moment to moment, just like any other stock’s price, and an investor will need a broker in order to purchase them, which means that he/she will have to pay a commission. On the plus side, ETFs are more tax-efficient than normal mutual funds, and since they track indexes they have very low operating and transaction costs associated with them. There are no sales loads or investment minimums required to purchase an ETF.
Our Take: We love ETFs. ETFs charge a fraction of the fees of mutual funds and can be traded just like a stock. And online broker’s offer very reasonable commissions ranging from $4 to $10 per trade. Additionally, ALL of the trading strategies you read about on CompanyInvest.com can be used on ETFs.
MORE REASONS TO BUY ETFs
There are two main reasons we love ETFs at CompanyInvest.com:
#1: ETFs have much lower fees than mutual funds. Over time this can be very significant. Consider the following example:
Investor A has a portfolio of four of the leading mutual funds with an average expense ratio of 2.16% (Typical of a mutual fund portfolio). He initially invests $1 million. His portfolio yields a 10% annual return. After 30 years, his portfolio grows to $9.6 million. Not bad right?
Investor B has a portfolio of four of the leading ETFs with an average expense ratio of 0.19% (Typical of an ETF portfolio). He also initially invests $1 million. Let’s assume his portfolio also yields 10% a year. After 30 years, investor B’s portfolio grows to $16.5 million!
So over a 30 year period, with identical annual rates of return, Investor B has accumulated nearly $7 million more dollars than Investor A. And that is ALL due to higher fund expenses and other fees over time.
#2 ETFs can be traded just like a stock. This means you can buy and sell them whenever you want, and you can also short them (and make money even when the market is trending down).
ALL of the strategies we suggest on Companyinvest.com can be used with ETFs; but very few with mutual funds. Once you learn to trade and incorporate trading strategies such as the ones taught on this site, you can beat the S&P 500 100% of the time; not 15% like the mutual funds.
Bottom Line: Participate in mutual funds if your company offers a matching contribution to your 401k program. But consider opening a ROTH IRA (all the major online brokers such as Scottrade, Etrade, Tradeking, and Sharebuilder) offer them. You will get much more bang for your buck and if you use the strategies discussed on our site, your annual return can be more like 20% per year, instead of the 10% used in the example above.
4 com