Archive for the Category Mutual Funds

 
 

An Overseas Fund Comes on Strong

After two lousy years, Quant Foreign Value is tearing up the performance charts.

From Kiplinger’s Personal Finance:

With a name like Quant Foreign Value (symbol QFVOX), you’d think that this hot fund lets computers do all the stock picking. Quant (short for quantitative) does use computers to thin the universe of 24,000 foreign stocks to about 1,000 candidates that appear cheap based on estimates of how much cash the businesses generate. At that point, however, manager Bernard Horn and his four analysts turn to good old-fashioned company analysis, traveling the globe to find about 50 stocks they think have the best prospects over the next three to five years. Horn does not hedge the fund’s currency exposure or restrict how many stocks the fund can own in a particular country or industry.

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Target-Date Funds Reset Their Sights

Fund companies are tinkering with these one-stop retirement plans after their bear-market beating.

From Kiplinger’s Personal Finance:

From U.S. senators to government regulators to shell-shocked investors, everyone, it seems, is drawing a bead on target-date funds for producing such rotten results during the 2007-09 bear market. These funds were supposed to be simple solutions for retirement saving: You picked a fund with a date close to your anticipated retirement. As the date approached, the fund would adjust the bond portion of its portfolio to become more conservative and protect returns.

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Stable Funds in Chaotic Times

These funds deliver predictable results for retirement savers.

From Kiplinger’s Personal Finance:

When the financial crisis ravaged the stock market and many parts of the bond market, stable-value funds stood out with their combination of modest, positive returns and their, well, stability. As a result, retirement savers clamored for these steadfast funds and the security they offer. The percentage of assets invested in stable-value funds in large-company 401(k) plans that offer a stable-value option rose from 20% in November 2007 to 36% in March 2009, according to Hewitt Associates, a benefits-consulting firm. Although the total amount invested in stable-value funds has fallen as stocks have recovered, such funds retain more than $642 billion in assets, which makes them the largest category of fixed-income investment in 401(k) plans.

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Bear Market Bonus: 7 Great Funds Reopen

With fewer assets, funds that were previously shut are now clamoring for your business.

From Kiplinger’s Personal Finance:

Investors are once again investing, and that means they’ve rediscovered stock funds. After pulling some $285 billion out of stock funds from November 2007 through March 2009, they added $42 billion from April through June. This kind of behavior isn’t surprising.

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Six Funds That Cut Risk

Diversify your portfolio with these funds that don’t move in tandem with the stock market.

From Kiplinger.com:

Diversification got a black eye during the 2007-09 bear market. About the only things that made money during the downturn were Treasury bonds and cash (money-market funds, CDs and the like). Just about every other kind of investment was demolished.

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You’re Smarter Than They Thought

Rather than sell, most people hang on to their funds during periods of market turmoil.

From Kiplinger’s Personal Finance:

You’ve probably heard this grim fairy tale: Plunging stocks provoke jittery investors to yank money out of mutual funds. In their rush to the exits, these saps miss the first wave of the next bull market. Eventually, as the sting of their losses wears off, they realize their stupidity and jump back into stock funds just as the bear is about to pounce again. And the vicious circle of market mistiming goes on. Frightening indeed, but not necessarily true.

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ETFs Target Retirement

Target-date funds are now available in low-cost exchange-traded flavors.

From Kiplinger’s Personal Finance:

Like peanut butter and jelly, target-date exchange-traded funds should be an irresistible combination. These funds aim to marry the low costs of investing in ETFs with the set-it-and-forget-it ease of funds that shift to a more conservative mix of stocks and bonds as they approach their target dates.

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Fidelity Launches Three New Funds

Two of the fund giant’s latest offerings give investors international exposure, while the other gives instant asset allocation.

From Kiplinger.com:

The newest offerings from Fidelity address two major investing trends: the growing desire for one-fund solutions and rising demand for international investments.

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Chicken Little Growth Gets Cooked

The rapid rise and fall of this gimmicky fund illustrates all the traits of a classic bad investment.

From Kiplinger.com:

Funds that stink are rarely worth a mention. But when a fund fails on every level — lousy strategy, unproven management, high expenses, a spotty track record, poor board oversight and a cheesy name — it certainly merits attention.

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And Now, Muni ETFs

Lower costs make these exchange-traded funds attractive.

From Kiplinger’s Personal Finance:

Add municipal bonds to the growing empire of assets tracked by exchange-traded funds. These index followers, which trade like stocks, come at an opportune time, as income investors worried about choppy credit markets scramble to safer havens. But is a muni-bond ETF right for you?

Read more here.

 

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