Mutual fund
China Play: A Comparison of FXI, PGJ, and MCHFX
I have been investing in China for more than three years and the first China related financial product I purchased was Mattews China Fund (MCHFX) held in my brokerage account with Scottrade. I sold all my position at the end of 2003 when Scottrade started to charge commissions for even the non-load funds. Shortly after, [...]
Am I Paying Too Much for My 401(k)?
An article in yesterday's USAToday prompted to check the fees I paid for those funds in my 401(k) plan. Unlike mutual funds holding in my taxable accounts, in which I have the flexibility to choose from perhaps hundreds of funds in the same category from as many companies, the number of funds in my 401(k) [...]
Vanguard Reopens the Door of Strategic Equity Fund to New Investors
If you look to add some mid-cap funds into your portfolio. Here's the good news. According to Morningstar.com, Vanguard Strategic Equity Fund (VSEQX) (a Mid-blend fund with an EP of 0.82% and YTD return 10.31%, 3-year return 14.89% and 5-year return 14.50%), which was closed to new investers in April 2006 due to asset size [...]
How often Do You Check Your Investment Accounts’ Balance?
Every day? Every week? or Every month?
When I first started investing in 2001, I was so eager to see how my investments (mutual funds) were doing, I just couldn't wait till 6 o'clock in the eventing to get the closing prices. So I entered the top 10 or 15 holdings of each mutual funds I [...]
September 2006 Score Card — Part IV: Asset Allocation
This is the last item on the September 2006 score card: asset allocations of the taxable accounts.
In addition to investing regularly in our retirement accounts (401(k)s, Roth IRAs), I also have some stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds in taxable accounts. Right now, these accounts serve as supplements to our retirement investments. When it comes [...]
“How to Invest When You’re Young”
This is the title of an article from Kiplinger's Personal Finance. The article suggested several options to start investing with a small amount of money (less than $500). According to the article, youngsters can start stock investment with Sharebuilder, which charges $4 for each transaction. For the long-term, the article brought up a couple of [...]
Net Worth Update
One of my mutual fund holdings, Columbia Strategic Investor Z (CSVFX), lost more than $2.60 in NAV on September 20th. At that time, I thought it must be due to income distributions. But I forgot to check my account from their website and didn't take the distribution into consideration when calculating my September net worth.
Last [...]
Mutual Fund Distributions: What are They?
There’s an article in the T. Row Price Investor magazine I received today on mutual fund distributions. If you are a new mutual fund investor or planning to invest into mutual funds, it could used as fundamentals about mutual fund investing. So I summarized and expanded the article a little bit for this post.
Ok, what [...]
Dogs of the Dow?
On my way to work this morning, I heard Bloomberg radio (yes, I alsmost never dailed any music channel) mentioned a mutual fund that has a 12-month return of 18% (maybe the number I remembered is a little bit off, but it's in that area). The return was great but I think there are plenty [...]
Understanding M*’s Star Rating
If you are a mutual fund investor, chances are you have seen Morningstar’s star rating every where, on fund family’s website, on Yahoo! Finance (where you can find a comprehensive list of funds and fund families), even on funds’ ads. Common sense tells us a fund with five stars should outperform a two-star fund, the [...]
