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Investing in Mutual Funds: Did you know that you can invest in mutual funds for as little as $50? Many people who don't save money in America don't realize how little it takes to get started with an investment such as mutual funds. There are dozens of investment firms that let you invest your money and mutual funds are the best way to do it. With 1000's of funds to choose from in all types of categories and from different countries, there has to be 1 or 2 that you like. You can go online to Fidelity.com, Schwab.com, or TDAmeritrade.com and start an account with a small investment. For beginner investors you should do a little research on Yahoo Finance or CNN Money to get an idea of how mutual funds work. Unlike individual stocks which allow you to purchase shares in say Microsoft or Coke, a mutual fund is a family of stocks, bonds, securities, or short-term money market instruments that are sold as one fund. The fund manager, or porfolio manager, will handle the buying and selling of the fund. The types of mutual funds that exist are open-end funds, exchange traded funds, equity funds, mid-cap and large-cap funds, growth and value funds, bond funds, money market funds, and hedge funds. Mutual funds usually have a management fee associated with them as well as non-management expenses. The biggest discussion on mutual funds are those with sales loads and those without (no loads). For a long time investors bought loaded funds thinking they would perform better but that is not always the case. No load funds are a great way to go since returns on these can be just as high as the loaded funds. Vanguard and Fidelity are the largest mutual fund families that sell no-load index funds. You will still find you are paying a small fee to own these but the expense ratio is often .2% or less each year. In recent years everyone flocked to the real estate market to make their money, but historical data shows that investing in the stock market (long term) has made more on your investment than real estate has. If you don't already have a retirement account started stop in to your local investment firm and deposit some money and purchase a mutual fund. Best Mutual Funds: There are lots of sites that offer mutual fund reviews and research, but we always trust the information we find on Morningstar.com. They rate all the top performing funds and their 4-star and 5-star picks are ones you should look at carefully and consider for purchase. Their mutual fund performance and ratings charts are clearly layed out and feature value funds, growth funds, large-cap funds, mid-cap funds, core international funds, emerging markets funds, and index funds. The analyst reports are engaging and the website will educate you on much more than just mutual funds. I always check out their 'favorite funds' category every few months to see which ones are new and which ones are gone from the list. Be sure to look at their recommended foreign mutual funds which delve into the economies of China and India which are growing at astronomical rates. You can find information on stocks, ETF's, and mutual funds for Morningstar HERE. Some of the top performers this year are AIM China A, Direxion Latin America Bull 2X Inv, Nationwide China Opportunities A, Matthews China, ProFunds UltraEmerging Markets Inv, Guinness Atkinson China & Hong Kong, CGM Focus, and Matthews India. You can see the trend is pointing towards China and India, although many experts say a major correction is overdue in those markets. Top Performing Mutual Funds: Several magazines, newspapers, and online websites track the top performing mutual funds each year and the best are those that have historical data to back up findings. Many mutual funds claim to have returns that average 18% a year (as an example) but you come to find out that the average is based on the last 5 years or so (not longer like you might think). It really doesn't matter what a fund has done, you should be more concerned with what it will do after you have invested your hard earned money into it. In the past few years mutual funds that specialize in energy, oil, China stocks, India stocks, and REITs (Real Estate Investment Trust) have done exceptionally well with returns topping 30% to 50% a year in some cases. Those levels of performance are certainly not sustainable but being involved in a few mutual funds of that stature make for a nice portfolio. To follow some of the best performing and top rated mutual funds, we suggest visiting the Yahoo Finance page HERE. They list 'top performers' for 3 months, 1 year, 3 years and 5 years. They supply the fund name, ticker symbol, and % return for that given time period. You can also search for the top performing funds by sector - technology, real estate, health, financial, precious metals, utilities, communications, or natural resources. The BlackRock Latin America I fund has the best 5 year returns with an annual rate of 55.89% and the best 1 year return went to Direxion Latin America Bull 2X Inv with 169.29%. Amazing returns if you can just find a few of these. No Load Mutual Funds: Mutual funds are split into 2 categories - no load and load. A mutual fund with a "load" means you have to pay a % of your investment to the financial institution in charge of managing the fund for you. It's like a management fee that you pay regardless of whether the fund goes up or down. You can understand why "no load" mutual funds have become so popular in recent years as investors are wising up to all the "nickel and diming" that Wall Street firms put on the smaller investors. Don't always shy away from mutual funds with fees because often you may pay 1% on the 'load' but the return on investment is 10% compared to a no load fund that only returns say 6%. You never know how a fund will perform, but loaded mutual funds are not always a bad way to go. For a list of no load mutual funds go HERE. You get direct links to the companies that supply the funds. Charles Schwab also supplies an online list of over 2000 no load mutual funds HERE. India and China Mutual Funds: It's no secret that the U.S. economy is not growing as fast as those in China and India. Naturally, as an investor, you want to be where the growth is and it appears to be very steady in those 2 countries. We are talking billions of people who are potentially consumers in all respects of the word moving forward. Investing in India and China is not that difficult, but there are risks just like with any investment. You don't even need to own a Chinese stock or mutual fund in order to get in on the action. As the U.S. dollar declines, many American made goods (like those from Intel or Proctor and Gamble) will look cheaper in the eyes of the Chinese or Indians and those companies will make out well. As for stocks and mutual funds that feature Chinese or Indian stocks and funds, go to Morningstar HERE. Fidelity mutual funds are another source for investing in International funds like those found in India. You can see the Fidelity list of India mutual funds HERE. We found that the best funds were the AIM China I (IACFX), AIM China A (AACFX), AIM China B (ABCFX) and AIM China C (CACFX). Also for India was Eaton Vance Greater India A (ETGIX). Looks up those ticker symbols for more info on the funds and what they include. © 1999-2008 Funskins.com - Product Reviews