| You can pay a penny on the dollar for good | | | | investing. A $10,000 investment in the wrong fund |
| investment management or pay lots more for | | | | could cost you $500 off the top in sales charges |
| asset management like some rich folks do. Does | | | | plus yearly expenses of $200 a year, increasing |
| the latter guarantee good investment returns? No | | | | with the value of your investment. On the other |
| way. Whether they call themselves investment | | | | hand, a similar fund with a more favorable cost |
| management companies or asset management | | | | structure is likely available with no sales charges |
| firms, you lay your money down and you take | | | | and yearly expenses of less than ½%, total |
| your chances. Why pay more? | | | | cost of investing. The only predictable investment |
| Investment management or asset management | | | | performance difference between the two is the |
| takes various forms for the individual investor. | | | | cost of investing. Every penny you pay in sales |
| Hedge funds might charge 2% yearly plus 20% | | | | charges and fund expenses comes right out of |
| of profits, and are out of bounds for the average | | | | your pocket, and acts to reduce your net profit |
| investor. You can't legally invest there unless you | | | | or investment return. |
| are rich by normal standards. That's fine with me | | | | The very lowest cost of investing can be found in |
| because I'm not interested in paying big bucks for | | | | NO-LOAD INDEX FUNDS. There are no loads |
| investment management that offers no | | | | (sales charges) here and low yearly expenses, |
| guarantees. The good news is that there are | | | | because the investment management team |
| some very good investment companies out there | | | | simply invests in the basket of securities that are |
| that work cheap in my opinion. If you are like | | | | included in an index. For example, if you want to |
| most people and lack the experience and skills | | | | own a small part of a large portfolio of major |
| necessary to manage an investment portfolio, | | | | stocks, an S&P 500 INDEX fund will have you |
| listen up. | | | | invested in the 500 most valuable U.S. stocks for |
| Good investment skills take years to develop and | | | | less than a penny on the dollar, less than ¼% a |
| few people ever develop them without losing | | | | year if you pick the right one. The two largest |
| considerable money during the learning process. | | | | fund companies in the country, Vanguard and |
| Skip the aggravation and put the professionals to | | | | Fidelity, offer no-load funds. One of them offers a |
| work for you on a budget. Mutual funds are the | | | | nice variety of index funds at very low cost to |
| investment management alternative of choice for | | | | investors. |
| 10s of millions of Americans. Why? That's what | | | | I've followed mutual fund companies since the |
| they are designed to do... manage money for | | | | early 1970s; and watched as the really good |
| individual investors who are not necessarily rich or | | | | investment management companies among them |
| financially sophisticated. Now, let's talk about good | | | | grew to be some of the very largest. In my |
| investment management for pennies on the dollar. | | | | opinion they reached the top by offering good |
| Not all mutual funds, especially stock funds, are | | | | performance, good service, and a low cost of |
| created equal when it comes down to the cost of | | | | investing. |