GoldenGate Fund

Comparing mutual funds is fairly simple when you have a good understanding of the key statistics and know how to employ them effectively. The key statistics listed below should serve you well in comparing mutual funds. Mutual Fund Returns *Average Return *Risk-Adjusted Return Mutual Fund Risk *Standard Deviation *Beta Risk-to-Return *Sharpe Ratio *Coefficient of Variation *Treynor Ratio You'll find these statistics readily available on the Internet at sites like Yahoo! Finance. These key statistics should be used in the order in which they are listed. Risk and return should not be used independently to compare mutual funds. Indeed, you need to use one of the measures of risk-to-return to compare...

Mutual funds are without a doubt the most significant invention of the 20th century as far as the small individual investor of modest means is concerned. Thanks to these mutual funds, the benefits of the international capital markets can now accrue to the vast majority of the population and now just the wealthy elite. A special type of mutual fund, called an index fund, represents an important evolution of the mutual fund model, allowing small investors to benefit even more than before. What Is An Index Fund? An index fund is merely a mutual fund that seeks to track the performance of a broad market index such as the S&P 500 or EAFE. Unlike traditional mutual funds, an index fund doesn't attempt to...

There are many different types of funds to invest into, and some can be more complicated than others. Some have better benefits than others, and investing in index funds is no different. They have advantages such as being simple, having lower costs, diversification, and even some tax advantages. To first understand the benefits of investing in index funds, you should first know what they are. Simply put, they are a group of stocks that represent a larger group of stocks. The larger groups of stocks can be small company stocks, high tech stocks, NASDAQ stocks, or an array of other options. Index funds are passively managed, low costing mutual funds that mimic the performance of the markets they...

The stock market is an extremely popular place for people to put their savings. In the long run, stocks have outperformed both bonds and savings accounts. But many people don't want the complication of owning individual stocks. Instead, they purchase mutual funds. These funds pool the money of many investors. In this way investors are able to get the diversity and stability they crave without putting in millions of dollars into the stock market. However, there has been a very big trend in recent years - the growth of index funds. Instead of hiring the best talent available and try to outperform their benchmarks, they merely try to beat them. What has caused this? Many "hot funds" don't stay hot for...

Investing money in well performing world economies, foreign markets and companies can be good strategy; especially when investments in local markets and companies are not offering good returns. More over many investors want to diversify and/or want to internationalize their portfolio. International ETFs are for excellent investment options for these investors. International Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are exchanged traded funds which track foreign stock exchanges. They are traded on local stock exchanges and are traded just like stocks – through a brokerage firm. International ETF firm buy and hold stocks traded in the exchange(s) they are tracking to make a small replica of that stock exchange...

Exchange traded funds refers to a type of investment that is common in the stock exchange market. The funds trade in stocks and bonds just like most investments that can be found in the stock market. They are popular with many investors because, they come with benefits like low cost of management, tax efficiency and features that make them easy to track and manage. Exchange traded funds are more suited for large corporations and institutional investors. This is because, once they have been bought, they are then exchanged with the stocks of their underlying securities. This is to say that while the ETF is bought as a unit, it may be exchanged for the smaller specific units that comprise the larger...

Buying at market peaks (or at least closer to the top of a period of market expansion) is pretty common. Most people invest during "high" periods for reasons that make perfect sense -- they are tired of sitting on the sidelines with their safer, lower-paying interest accounts and certificates, they see how well friends and family have done with equities in the past few years, they realize that with the way "things" are going, they had better get on board or risk missing out on the growth that is being talked about night after night on the news, in the papers, online, etc.. What makes a little less sense is that these same people will want to dump their equity based investments when things get tough...

With gold prices hovering around $1200 for last couple of days, commodity analysts and market participants are eagerly watching whether it is able to sustain the up move and scale further higher highs. Is the gold over-valued at $1200? Is it still a bargain hunter's choice? Has it reached new highs due to fundamental factors? Are the speculative forces driving the prices? Keeping aside the debate on these questions, one thing is certain that gold will continue to be a part of every investor's portfolio as an insurance against inflation, geopolitical tensions and turbulence in the global financial markets. This article explains some basic yet useful information about investment in gold through...

You can diversify your portfolio by adding the best performing mutual funds, which are groups of stocks instead of individual stocks. Another advantage is that a professional fund manager, whose livelihood depends on how his fund performs, defines the assortment of companies that you are investing in. The issue with these types of funds is that there is an expense involved since you are required to pay for the fund's management, which is automatically deducted from the value of the fund. Additional charges and fees can negatively affect the income your investment generates. Before investing in anything, even when investing in the best performing mutual funds, you need to take a bit of time figuring...

What many folks who invest in mutual funds fail to realize is that while the fund's performance is important, more important is the investors allocation or diversification of the funds they buy. Perhaps this is why it is more important to buy from a strong solid family of funds with a long standing track record. It is said that 75% of your portfolio's performance will indeed be from the asset allocation strategies employed and not the performance of any of the individual mutual funds that you purchase. Perhaps, Peter Lynch, investment guru extraordinaire would concur with me on this, as he has made a note of this in his many books on investing. When picking funds it is advised to be weary of the...

Being a Buy and Hold investor is like living through a nightmare where you find yourself the main character of the Greek "Myth of Sisyphus." Futile and Hopeless Labor: In this myth, Sisyphus is condemned by the god Zeus to an eternity of futile and hopeless labor. He must roll a heavy stone to the top of a mountain. But then the stone rolls all the way back down ... and Sisyphus has to push the stone back up again to the top. A sentence of "futile and hopeless labor" is similar to the situation that Buy and Hold investors have faced during many periods of stock market history. Since "Bull" Markets are inevitably followed by "Bear" Markets, the investor's hard-won gains from the Bull Market up-cycle...

As noted in Part 1 of this two-part article, successful online stock investing is about picking the best stocks to buy. Some professional investors and traders use the fundamental analysis of stocks, other rely on technical analysis of the financial markets. The fundamental analysis of stocks is based on criteria like Relative price strength, Cash Flow, Financial leverage ratio, Consensus-earnings-forecast. Whether you are looking for best penny stocks to buy or any other hot stocks to trade, you will find very useful the following 5 out 10 most important fundamental factors shared by the top performing stocks before they made huge stock market profits in short term. 1.Relative Price Strength - RPS...

Very few people, even professionals, have heard of the Dalbar Study that originated in 1995. Its purpose is to determine the profitability of trading for the small investor of mutual funds. Their results are even worse than I thought. The BuyNHolders will love the results as it "proves" that buying and holding is better than trying to switch to so-called "hot" funds. My readers know I think that mindless buy and hold is a guaranteed loser - and I can prove it. During the greatest bull market of all time from 1984 to December 2002 the study came up with an annualized return of 2.57% compared to 12.22% for those who bought and held an S&P500 index fund. These dummies did not even keep up with...

In the Netherlands there are two popular investment funds. There is also a site -- morningstar.nl -- where the characteristics of funds can be compared. I've tried it for those two funds and came up with a peculiar fact, when looking at the last (5 years') performance of both funds: - Ytd (09) -19,55% /\ -8,13% - 2008 -39,26% /\ -66% - 2007 -1,28% /\ 31,94% - 2006 7,52% /\ 18,1% - 2005 28,62% /\ 38,81% - 2004 5,04% /\ 5,74% If someone would have invested 1000 euros starting from 2004 the left fund would have returned (today) 667 euros, the right fund would have returned 675 euros. Amazing, how small a difference! This could be due to the small margin the fund managers are allowed to deviate from...

Tax planning has changed radically over a period of time. Since its time for filling income tax returns for 2007-2008 as the end date (31st March '08) is approaching. As a tax payer you need to understand the best way through which you can make use of the exemptions provided by the government. Earlier people had limited choice of tax saving instruments to be used for the purpose of tax planning. But now with the ELSS (Equity Linked Saving Schemes) launched by most of the mutual fund companies, the whole approach towards tax saving has changed. With mutual funds tax planning had become more important part of over all investment planning. With equity linked saving schemes the tax exemptions can be...

Are you planning for retirement, Are you a new beginner in the investment market? If yes, then this is for you: Anyone who is a wise man and is planning to be financially independent, who has left service and would like to invest his/her income wisely would like to seek for a long lasting source of how to invest his income or fund in the right way in other to be able to be financially independent throughout his/her old age: Investing money in the right place is one of the most difficult tasks for any investor to accomplish. This is because it is one of the complicated things to do for the fear of loosing the fund. For a beginner investing in any kind of an investment, he should first think about the...

Today, many investors are looking for quick and high yield safe investments tools. If you are looking for a high yield safe investment plan, then you can consider investing in convertible bonds or stock options: Convertible bonds, which are also called known as CBs or convertibles, are bonds that the owner of the bond can convert into predetermined sum of the company's equity at a given point in time during its life. Convertible bonds are very attractive, safe and high yield safe investments option that you can consider due to the following reasons: • Convertible bonds are one of the high yield safe investments option because it offers you with interest payments on regular basis. • Downtrend in...

New participants to 401k plans must quickly learn about proper 401k allocation. The reason is that so much of the success of their retirement can rest on how well their investment decisions are in their 401k plan. Since participants can normally place their funds into a number of different assets (mutual funds, stocks, bonds, equities, etc.), it is important to know how each one can impact your plan and the benefits of diversification. Although each 401k plan will have different investment options depending on the specific plan. Generally, you will find that most are with big investment companies like Fidelity where they give you a broad selection of different types of mutual funds like Growth...

Mutual Fund is basically a trust which through its various schemes safeguards the investments of small and big investors. Every scheme of each of these mutual funds has different terms and conditions. By nature mutual funds are not tax saving instruments. However, investment products in these funds may offer tax savings. ELSS schemes which are commonly known as tax mutual fund is a category where equity and equity related instruments are invested. Investment up to 1 lakh is tax exempted under section 80C. However, these schemes have a lock in period of 3 years before which you cannot withdraw. The dividends received by the investor are also tax free. ELSS is a very good tax saving instrument which...

Investing is all about making your money work for you. The goal is to put your money in a vehicle with a positive rate of return, which is usually, but not always, expressed as a rate of interest. There are a number of different investment vehicles, suited to different goals. We're going to cover a series of traits related to all investments, and contrast the two most common investment vehicles, stocks versus bond. Stocks are shares of a company, either publicly or privately traded, think of them as a small percentage of ownership in the business. As a stockholder, you have some voting obligations for selecting officers of the company, and you'll get paid a share of the quarterly profits (called...

There are two types of investment strategies in common use include: Active strategies and passive strategies. In this article, we will only discuss the active strategies and leave the passive strategies for a new article. Active strategies need regular decision about what securities to invest in and how much to invest, as well as the timing of the sale of assets and the reinvestment in new equities.a) Stock selection The investor looks for stock that is undervalued, since this offers the greatest opportunity for growth above the market averages by analyzing the publicly available information, looking for any indication that this stock is undervalued. This type of investor will hold fewer companies...

Are you getting bad investment advice? If you, like most people, have been approaching investing the traditional way, you probably are. In fact, if you have been losing a lot in the stock market or if your nest egg isn't growing very fast or at all, you may have been on the receiving end of very conventional -- and pretty darn bad -- advice. Read on to find out why -- and what you can do about it. You see, the traditional party line is all about playing it safe. Now I'm not at all opposed to keeping your money safe. But the problem with the traditional approach is that the safety of your money is actually an illusion. You're giving up potential profits for the sake of keeping your money safe -- yet...

Regular readers will know that after extensive research and much experience, we favour passive investments. That is to say that our clients will accept the level of return that fits their appetite for risk over the long term. In addition, we can access institutional funds instead of retail funds and reduce costs which result in 'performance drag'. This way of investing is backed by investment guru Warren Buffett who said: "Most investors, both institutional and individual, will find that the best way to own common stocks is through an index fund that charges minimal fees". Those following this path are sure to beat the net results (after fees and expenses) delivered by the great majority of...

How to Manage Class C Mutual Funds If you want to keep developing on the present in the world of finance there are many more options than going out each juncture and vigorously scouting the information and news yourself.Visit Here now The major search engines each offer their own finance pages, complete shroud business also private finance news, advice and contacts. You can also side with buildup RSS feeds that deliver keyword-specific finance news law-abiding to your email address or feed reading device each day. Lets carry a look at what one of the major search engines offers on its finance home page. Whats important about these traverse apparatus options is that, through they also offer a...

ort mutual funds should not be evaluated in the short run to determine whether they are successful or not. Instead, investors need to understand what the long short mutual fund is and how it works in order to be able to gauge the success or failure of this particular type of investment. Basically, there are two main goals that long short mutual funds have for the investors. The first one is to try and provide investors with a return on their investment that is better than the historical return on stocks. The next goal is to try and reduce the volatility of the market by reducing the value fluctuations that many traditional stocks and mutual funds experience. The important thing for investors to keep...

If you understand how to invest in mutual funds you can easily find a way to improve your finances. Everyone wants easy money. If you have money sitting around and are not using it, it is natural to turn to the stock market as an investment option. Unfortunately the stock market is fickle and it is far too easy to loose money if you don't know what you are doing. Most people have no idea where to start, let alone how to actually make money. The amount of research needed to make good investment choices is overwhelming. Fortunately small investors no longer need to do this research. Mutual fund providers do the research for you and present a range of options you can understand. With managers and...

Unless you haven't been paying attention, you already know that China has one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Money is pouring into the country at an unbelievable rate. Want to know how your portfolio can benefit from the growth? Read on... The easiest way to gain exposure to the boom going on in the far east is through a China ETF. In case your not familiar with the ETF investment vehicle, here's the skinny. ETFs are internally diversified, like a mutual fund. But, unlike a mutual fund, and ETF can be traded intra-day (like a stock). And ETFs cost far less than typical mutual funds. How do you buy a China ETF? First you have to pick a China ETF. There are a few options with...

Index Trackers There is a category of unit trusts called index trackers, which are set up to match as far as possible a specific index, such as the FTSE 100, the FTSE all share, the US, Europe or Japan indices. Charges are lower than ordinary unit trusts because expert advisers are not needed. Initial charges are usually no more than 1%. Some investment trusts offer index loan stocks, which are directly linked to the relevant index and so can achieve perfect linking. They usually have a set repayment date and pay dividends. As they are unsecured, there is a slight risk of a failure to repay, but they take preference over shares in the investment trust. Index trackers are a relatively cheap and safe...

Until now, I've been a big fan of ETF investments (Exchange Traded Funds). After all, they offer choice, flexibility, low costs and tax efficiency, among other benefits. And they're growing like wildfire... Though small compared to the 8,000 mutual funds valued at $9 trillion, there are now 253 ETFs with assets exceeding $315 billion, up 41% from a year ago. Clearly, they have fulfilled an important need. Everybody on Wall Street is getting in on the act, too. The New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq, the AMEX and the COMEX; brokerage houses like Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and Lehman; the indexer Dow Jones; and the rating services Standard & Poor's and Morningstar. Even giant mutual fund...

There are an extraordinary number and types of exchange traded funds that are available to individual investors to meet any investment objective. There are so many, however, that it's useful to examine the categories so you can make a wiser choice for your particular needs. The following list is a simple summary of many of the most popular categories along with a few example ticker symbols seem able to look for when you go to Yahoo finance or MSN Money Central to do your due diligence. Remember, investing is not child's play and you should consult a financial professional before making any decisions. ETFs have useful variety. No matter what kind of ETF you need for your trading or investing...

Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) First let's review the different types of ETF's and what they give investors access to. 1.0 ETF ESSENTIALS ETF is short for Exchange Traded Fund and they allow investors to buy a commodity, country's stock index, currency, or bonds. The use of ETFs has exploded in recent years from 1 in 1993 to 819 in 2009 (Source: ICI/SSgA) and give investors access to: • 32 countries • 16 commodities • 14 currencies • 30 different parts of the bond markets Source: Matt Hougan, The largest ETFs with respect to assets under management are: • SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) $85 Billion • SPDR Gold (GLD) $40 Billion • iShares MSCI-Emerging Mkts. $39 Billion • iShares MSCI-EAFE $35 Billion...

Selling covered calls on the stocks in your portfolio is a way to earn additional income. Many experts consider this strategy to be a low risk way to increase portfolio return. However, options are complicated, much more so than they seem to be at first. Few people, even many experienced investors, don't understand them fully. Besides, there are a huge number of possible options to choose from. You can sell in the money calls, close to the money calls and out of the money calls. You can sell them with expiration dates of tomorrow or three years in the future. However, not all these options will produce the same return, and some are riskier than others. Therefore, many people prefer to have...

If you like mutual funds to a point, but hate extra fees and not being able to enter and exit as you like, exchange traded funds are for you. When you buy an ETF, you're getting a basket of securities, which is why many people like them. They have many great points to them. More so, than individual stock picking. Did you know that you can by exchange traded funds just like stocks? Yep. There is not management fee or expense ratio like you would have in a traditional mutual fund. For example, if your broker charges $7 per stock trade, you'd pay $7 to buy an ETF and $7 to sell an ETF. ETFs, like stocks, bounce around and hopefully go up over time. When you want to buy or sell an ETF, it's as simple as...