When it comes to mutual funds, there is a lot more to success than just finding a good one. Sad investment stories like the following are all too common. I hope my sharing it with you will help you avoid making the same devastating financial mistake one of my former clients made.

This story begins during the height of the investment madness in 2000, just prior to the bear market. I had been managing an IRA account for "Bob" for around six years, with a better than average record of success. So I was surprised when Bob sheepishly called in July, 2000 to let me know he was transferring his IRA account, which had done particularly well during our latest Buy cycle going into the year 2000.

However, his tax preparer, a long time personal friend of Bob’s wife’s, was now also offering investment services, having recently received his Registered Representative’s license.

Fast forward to the end of September. It had become increasingly clear to me that the Bull market had run its course. So, in accordance with the Sell signal from our trend tracking methodology, we sold all of our mutual fund positions on October 13, 2000 and went 100% into money market. (See my article “How we eluded the Bear in 2000” at http://www.successful-investment.com/articles12.htm). From our safe haven we watched the market crash and burn, causing most other investors to sustain double digit losses eventually reaching as high as 50 - 60% of their assets.

In 2002 Bob unexpectedly stopped by my office. As it turned out, things had not gone well at all with his IRA investments. As most advisors would have done, his tax preparer/advisor had quickly moved all of Bob’s assets into a variety of “load funds.”

Of course, being newly licensed he was clueless (as were many licensed advisors) as to market behavior or analysis of any kind. The end result was that Bob’s portfolio lost in excess of 50% over the next 2 years. (Not to gloat, but my clients’ losses in the same period were non-existent.)

Unfortunately, the degree of loss Bob sustained was experienced by many investors who did not follow a disciplined and methodical approach.

What I find particularly distasteful is that Bob’s tax preparer misused his position of trust. He made financial decisions that he was not qualified to make, though his license implied that he did know enough to make them. So now we know what a piece of paper is worth.

This is no different than letting a newly graduated medical student with a fresh MD behind his name perform heart surgery. Or, hiring a new MBA grad to Chief Financial Officer of a Fortune 500 company. Yet the financial services industry allows someone to get a license (after a fairly short course) and to immediately start making incredibly important and far reaching financial decisions for anyone he or she can sell their service to.

This is a worrisome trend in this industry. A CPA friend confirmed that he has been approached many times by firms wanting him to offer investment services.

Why? It’s easy money! Accountants and tax professionals have a great business base. They are in a unique position of trust, because of the information their clients disclose to them. Whether they are employed by a company or they maintain an individual practice, there is probably no other person (other than your spouse) who knows as many intimate details of your financial life as your accountant/tax preparer.

To abuse this trust for personal gain—no matter how noble the motive may appear—is a total conflict of interest and a huge betrayal.

The bear market of 2000 has shown that investing must be a disciplined endeavor. Even most professionals have failed to recognize this. What busy accountant, in the middle of tax season, can put the necessary time and attention to a volatile investment market that may require action at a moment’s notice?

As for Bob, he’s still with his accountant, and in the same investments that brought his portfolio down. He’s hoping for a miracle recovery. As of this writing, the stock market is engaged in something of an upswing and Bob, I’m sure, is getting his hopes up that he will recover some of his losses. However, I shudder to think that this rally may come to an end and the bear market resumes. Where will Bob be then?

At 58 years old Bob is still playing Russian roulette with his retirement. He’s apparently unable to make a decision to move to someone who has the ability to make sense of market trends and the discipline to follow the signals they communicate. This is a decision that will have a profound affect on his financial future—and will determine whether his story has a happy or sad ending.

About The Author

Ulli Niemann is an investment advisor and has been writing about objective, methodical approaches to investing for over 10 years. He eluded the bear market of 2000 and has helped countless of people make better investment decisions. To find out more about his approach and his FREE Newsletter, please visit: www.successful-investment.com; ulli@successful-investment.com

The bear market that showed up at the end of 2000 has every brokerage house-as well as the entire mutual fund industry-scrambling to find creative ways to boost both their image and bottom line. Unfortunately, this is often at the investors’ expense.

Fund managers are ever on the lookout for ways to spin the stats to hide lousy track records and to find ways to obscure fees. To add insult to (financial) injury, investors end up being penalized for selling. So what’s an investor to do? In this case, knowledge is power. Here are some of the ways mutual fund investors are being taken advantage of:

Keep in mind that mutual fund companies have market share in mind, not your best interest. If you think that might not be true, consider the skyrocket growth rate for pure technology funds. But look at them now: they’ve crashed & burned and no buy & holder has come out with a win.

Then there’s the sad story of incompetence in the mutual fund industry. There are hordes of inexperienced financial planners (commissioned salesmen) just waiting to sell you load funds (A and B shares), or to recommend an asset allocation approach with no real plan or strategy that will serve you in a bear market.

Of course, there’s always the option of having a perfectly balanced portfolio designed. Such was the case when a prospective client phoned me in 1999 during the height of the technology boom. He felt left out because everybody was making money in one of history’s great bull markets, but his portfolio was so well balanced that he was neither making nor losing anything. He would have been better off in a money market account.

To me, the term balanced portfolio translates into this: I have no clue what I’m doing, where the major trend is, what I should be buying or whether I should be in the market in the first place. I’m hedging so much that one investment goes up and another goes down.

Balance is one thing and safety is really quite another. And mutual funds do not automatically mean either safety or balance. The key is always information-knowing how to get reliable info and what it means once you have it.

This is not for everyone. If you have money to invest and you don’t have the time or the inclination to do the homework, then your smartest move is to find someone you trust. That would be someone with a track record you can verify, and someone who is not going to make money off your investment every time you buy or sell something.

People like this do exist, and the good news is you only need to do your homework once. That’s when you check them out. From then on, you can relax knowing you’re just not likely to fall prey to any of the rip-offs that are out there.

About The Author

Ulli Niemann is an investment advisor and has been writing about objective, methodical approaches to investing for over 10 years. He eluded the bear market of 2000 and has helped hundreds of people make better investment decisions. To find out more about his approach and his FREE Newsletter, please visit: http://www.successful-investment.com; ulli@successful-investment.com

If you are fed up with early redemption charges and ever increasing mutual fund management fees on top of bad-performing fund managers, read on. There is a quiet revolution going on in the no-load mutual fund industry and you, the individual investor, may benefit from it greatly.

I am referring to Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), which have been around for years, but have grown tremendously since their inception. There are currently over 100 choices with around $10 billion in assets.

In a nutshell, an ETF is a specific kind of no-load mutual fund that you might consider to be a basket of stocks. ETFs are diversified like mutual funds, only they trade like stocks. They are cheap to trade (as low as $8.00) and don’t hit you with any short-term redemption fees. And they offer investing opportunities across the board.

ETFs track every index under the sun including the S&P 500, the Nasdaq 100, The Russell 2000 and many others. Available through any discount broker, they basically fall into one of three categories: broad-based U.S. indexes, sectors and international.

The have esoteric names such as iShares, StreetTracks, HOLDRs and SPYDRs. The difference is in the index they are tracking and the company marketing them. You will see big name companies offering them, like the American Stock Exchange, Barclay’s Global Investors, Vanguard, and State Street Global Investors.

In my newsletter I track the currently most appropriate ETFs for you to consider. For more detailed information you can visit these web sites:

In addition to inexpensive trades and no short-term redemption fees, how else can ETFs save you money vs. no load mutual funds? One way is on their annual management fees. That fee for ETFs is in the area of 0.45% vs. 1.5% on average for no load mutual funds. The fees charged by discount broker are so low they almost can be disregarded, usually less than 0.1% of the transaction.

For example, I have used ETFs for some managed account clients during my last Buy cycle, which started on 4/29/03, and paid $27 for a $28,000 order — and that wasn’t even with the cheapest discount broker.

So, if these ETFs are so great, why hasn’t your broker or financial planner recommended them to you? Simple! Brokers, and those advisors working on commissions, don’t make money on ETFs; no commissions up front or hidden on the back end. It’s simply not in their interest to promote them.

With all the positives for the investor, there is one disadvantage, which may not be applicable to you unless you are a hot shot no load mutual fund picker. It is that in any given economic environment really super performing mutual funds can outperform the indexes, but an ETF can never outperform the index it’s tied to. You would need to look at your own investment record to know whether this is a downside for you.

Here’s a real life example from my advisory practice. My trend tracking indicator signaled a Buy on 4/29/03. Based on my momentum indicators I chose 5 no load mutual funds and 4 ETFs. Over the following 3 months my ETFs gained anywhere from +10.02% to +22.36%, while my no load mutual funds gained from +9.15% to +36.35%. If you’re fortunate enough to make a superior selection you will outperform an ETF. Of course, that presumes you picked a very successful fund as compared to only a moderately successful ETF.

A word of caution! Just because ETFs are cheap and easy to buy doesn’t mean they will guarantee you a profit. You can lose money with them just as easily as you do with no-load mutual funds. You still need to make sure you have a disciplined methodology in place to help you get into and out of the market. If you don’t, you’re gambling no matter what you invest in.

Having gotten the disclaimer out of the way, hopefully these insights into ETFs will broaden your perspective on ways you can prosper in your investments.

© Ulli G. Niemann

About The Author

Ulli Niemann is an investment advisor and has been writing about objective, methodical approaches to investing for over 10 years. He eluded the bear market of 2000 and has helped countless people make better investment decisions. To find out more about his approach and his FREE Newsletter, please visit: www.successful-investment.com; ulli@successful-investment.com

With the internet such a huge part of our daily lives, many investors have access to a wide range of instant investment information.

Whether you’re into stocks, bonds, mutual funds, futures or options, there are tons of electronic investment newsletters offering to turn your small stake into a giant fortune. All you need to do is subscribe and watch your portfolio soar.

Yeah, right!

As a practicing investment advisor specializing in no load mutual funds, I have received my share of e-mails from disillusioned subscribers wanting to know how to better evaluate newsletter services.

While there are no absolutes, I can give you a few pointers that might help you make a better decision:

1. Stay away from the most obvious hype. Ads promising to turn your $10,000 into $1 million in 2 years by buying this incredible stock or hot commodity are not promoting investing — they are selling gambling. Follow the "If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is" rule.

2. Most mutual fund newsletters won’t make those outlandish claims, but some of them are still pushing the truth as far as they can. So try to get a free issue or two to examine. If you can’t get a sample, check if they have a trial period? How about a money back guarantee? If not, pay with your credit card. These days you’re pretty well protected by this payment method even if the newsletter doesn’t offer a satisfaction guarantee.

3. Consider the editor as well as the disclaimer notes. Is he or she only publishing a newsletter? Or is he also an investment advisor with a practice?

Why would that last point matter? I may be biased, but I believe that you get far better advice from a writer who also is in the trenches every day investing their own as well as their clients’ portfolios. They would have far better insights as to what works and what doesn’t than someone who has the theory down but no practical experience.

4. Look at the investment recommendations. Are they suggesting you buy into a certain orientation such as mid cap, small cap or large value? Or are they picking specific investments based on a variety of technical indicators?

In my no-load mutual fund practice I use specific recommendations, even for my free newsletter subscribers. They are first based on my trend tracking indicator giving us the green light and secondarily on the selection of mutual funds based on momentum analysis.

The more specific the recommendations, the better, because that allows you to follow along either just on paper (which you should do at first) or with your actual portfolio.

5. Are they recommending when to sell a mutual fund either because of gains or to limit your losses? This to me is the most important issue. If there is no plan in place for getting out, how will you ever know when to sell? This has been the greatest downfall of most publishers (and investors!) since the bear market of 2000 — not selling even if market conditions dictate it would be in your best interest to do so.

The advice of most newsletter services can make you money in bull markets. However, with the continuation of the bear market still a distinct possibility; be sure to look at any newsletter’s investment advice record since 2000.

For many people investing is an emotional issue. The pendulum swings between fear of loss and greed for greater returns. If a complete methodology for buying and selling is offered in a newsletter, such as one I advocate, be sure that it fits your emotional make up.

There is no sense in following an investment approach, which may have merits, if it means sleepless nights for you. You won’t stick with it for the long term — and long-term investing is essential for making your portfolio grow and prosper.

So, the bottom line is to look for a newsletter that:

Following these guidelines may not make you rich, but it will help you avoid some bad advice.

About The Author

Ulli Niemann is an investment advisor and has written about methodical approaches to investing for over 10 years. He avoided the bear market of 2000 and has helped countless people make better investment decisions. Subscribe to his free newsletter: www.successful-investment.com

ulli@successful-investment.com

Every Wall Street analyst, financial planner and broker will tell you that the right way to pick a mutual fund is find a good money manager of a fund that has a long time record.

Yes, I believe that too, but it is amazing that when you go back in time to see what this genius did with the mutual fund, you will find years he has had some terrible losses. Would you want to own that fund then? In the year 2000 about 60% of all mutual funds declined. Many had losses of 30%, 40% and many over 50%. That is when they tell you things like: "you have to be in for the long haul", "this is only a market correction" and "the market always comes back". Among others.

One of the best-known mutual funds, Fidelity Magellan, dropped from a high last year of 146 to 100. That is a 32% loss. Yet this fund manager received a salary of over a million dollars. Did you know the average fund manager made $290,000 last year? How can that kind of money be paid to a person who loses your hard-earned cash? The great majority of fund managers today have not experienced a long-term bear market. They are too young. A few of them did go through the 1987 crunch in which the bottom was reached in 3 weeks. They did not have a chance to sell off their weakest stocks. Of course, they had plenty of time before that fateful 508-point one-day loss to unload some of their dogs. Unfortunately, fund managers are not taught to sell and they definitely do not understand that sometimes cash is the best position.

A major fallacy of mutual fund charters is that they must always be fully invested. There are many funds that have specialties such a Pacific Rim, Russia, real estate, indexes of various kinds, socially responsible, big cap, small cap and on and on. There are times when almost everything in that sector is going down and there is nothing to buy, but the fund charter maintains they must be fully invested. In defense of the fund manager he must buy even if it is garbage. He is not allowed to preserve the investors capital by staying in treasury bills.

If you think a fund manager who loses 30%, 40% or more of your money at any time is a good fund manager then you have been snookered by Wall Street. There is only one way to protect yourself from that type of money mismanagement and it is very simple. If the fund you own drops more than 15% from its highest price any time after you own it then you must sell it immediately even if there is a sales charge or redemption fee. The first rule of investing is "protect your capital". You even have to protect yourself from "a good fund manager".

Al Thomas’ book, "If It Doesn’t Go Up, Don’t Buy It!" has helped thousands of people make money and keep their profits with his simple 2-step method. Read the first chapter at http://www.mutualfundmagic.com and discover why he’s the man that Wall Street does not want you to know.

Copyright 2005

Recently I was invited to appear on a live CNNfn television show to discuss my article “How to evaluate Load vs. No Load Mutual Funds.” (You can read that article on my website http://www.successful-investment.com/articles21.htm)

As the producer and I were working out the logistics of my appearance, she mentioned in passing that “most people can’t afford an investment advisor.”

While that wasn’t the time or place for me to discuss this, I realized that many people might have a similar misconception. Had conditions allowed, I would have pointed out the following to her.

There are only two ways an individual can invest in mutual funds: Selecting and investing themselves or using outside help. If they use outside help they’ll have a couple of choices again: A commissioned salesperson (broker, financial planner or Registered Representative) or a fee-based investment advisor.

Most people don’t know the difference and often start with a broker who charges about 6% commission off the top to purchase a mutual fund. The fund is usually from a limited selection of fund families the broker has a relationship with. He, of course, would never recommend a no load fund or an exchange traded fund (ETF), since it is not in his best interest — although it might be in yours.

Having a fee-based investment professional handling your portfolio will get you as close as possible to receiving advice that is based on nothing but the advisor’s best knowledge and evaluation of the market. They advise only what they consider top performing funds since sales commission is not a consideration and does not create any conflict of interest for them. But, how can you "afford" an advisor?

First off, the advisor’s fee is usually in the range of 1% to 3% per year depending on portfolio size. This amount is billed in advance on a pro-rated quarterly basis and charged directly to your investment account. This creates an initial savings right off the bat.

Most fee-based advisors offer complete service as far as your portfolio is concerned. That means that they don’t simply “sell” you a mutual fund and disappear until you call again. Since investors evaluate advisors based on the performance of their portfolio, advisors are keenly interested in maximizing your bottom line. In the long run, your gain should outweigh their fee.

Many advisors utilize an investment discipline or methodology that keeps you not only invested during upswings in the market, but also in the appropriate funds for the current economic environment. For example, at one time, tech funds were hot. Now, generally, they’re not. An advisor watching market trends could have been able to assist you in avoiding the bursting bubble. (In fact, my clients were advised to pull out of the market and into the safety of money markets in October, 2000, just before the market plummeted. What they didn’t lose because of this will more than cover my fees for the rest of their lives!)

Most advisors don’t have lengthy agreements and you usually can cancel by giving 2 weeks notice. The advisor never has access to your money because he is affiliated with a custodian who handles the money, the monthly statements and fulfills the proper legal reporting requirements.

With this arrangement an advisor can actually save you money. How?

1. The advisor will use only no load funds. Because of his affiliation with a custodian (often a major brokerage firm), he’ll have access to some 10,000 mutual funds, not just to one or two fund families as most commissioned brokers do. This allows him to pick the best available, which potentially means a higher return for his clients.

2. At times there are superior load funds available, especially in the international arena. I have used a couple of those in my own practice because they were available to me as “load waived funds” and my clients got the advantage without paying a sales commission.

3. Custodians many times also offer “Advisor only” funds. These are usually high performing mutual funds where the fund family wishes, for whatever reason, to deal only with investment professionals, so they set high minimum dollar requirements.

Such was the case in my practice during our most recent buy signal (4/29/03). I purchased the NAMCX fund, which was only available to advisors through my custodian. This fund rewarded us with a cool 47% over the following five months. Most independent investors would not have had access to such a fund on their own.

Keep in mind that markets fluctuate and starting with an advisor in the middle of a downturn will not likely yield high profits at first. However, over time, an advisor will most likely produce results better than what you would reasonably expect yourself to do, even with the advisor’s modest fee.

Choosing the right advisor and watching how your portfolio performs with their advice will almost always prove that it doesn’t cost you to have an investment advisor, it pays.

About The Author

Ulli Niemann is an investment advisor and has written about methodical approaches to investing for over 10 years. He avoided the bear market of 2000 and has helped countless people make better investment decisions. Subscribe to his free newsletter: www.successful-investment.com

ulli@successful-investment.com

Someday you may want to retire and continue to live in the life style to which you have become accustomed. According to conventional wisdom you will need less money because you will have fewer expenses than when you had to go to the office every day. Maybe. Let’s hope so.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way so you had better have saved enough cash to supplement the social security and pension plan income (if you have one).

My philosophy is to save with mutual funds as they are the safest way to invest in the stock market. There is one and only one basic criteria as to which mutual funds you should own. That fund or all those funds if you own more than one must be outperforming the S&P500 index (which is just an average) during the last 12 months.

Don’t listen to the Wall Street gurus who tell you to buy a "good" fund and stick with it. The only good fund is one that is doing better than an average because you don’t want your money doing a below average job. The hogwash you get from the great stock market "experts" is you need to look at how a fund has performed over the last 3, 5 or 10 years. Double hogwash. Ever hear the story about "what have you done for me lately"? It holds true for mutual funds.

Look up the big fund manager names on Wall Street. You will find that in the last 10 years all of them have had periods when they did not do an average job. You don’t want to own any of their fund while this guy is going through a ‘cold’ period.

Every week the Investor’s Business Daily paper publishes a list of various funds citing their performance over the past 36 months, 24 months, 12 months, 9 months, 6 months and 30 days. If you have the time and the right brokerage company you can pick the "hot" short term winners and switch from one to another at no commission charge. It does take time and effort.You will trade less frequently and you can get an excellent return on your money if you decide to go with the best performance over the last 12 months and you limit yourself to switching only if your fund falls out of the list..

When you are adding a small amount monthly to your IRA or 401k you will want to specify where those additional funds are to be invested. Always put them in the best performer at the time.

If you own more than one fund, say six, you should sell the weakest one and transfer your money from number six to number one. Sell the dog and invest in the top performer. Prune your portfolio monthly. Every fund manager will tell you this is too simplistic. It works. He is lying. Why? Because he is being paid on the amount of money in his fund and not upon the performance of the fund. It is called ‘you buy, he holds’. It is a loser; he is a professional loser. Why should you be a loser too?

Review your funds’ performance monthly and stay with the best ones. Retire early.

Al Thomas’ book, "If It Doesn’t Go Up, Don’t Buy It!" has helped thousands of people make money and keep their profits with his simple 2-step method. Read the first chapter at http://www.mutualfundmagic.com and discover why he’s the man that Wall Street does not want you to know.

Copyright 2005

With the stock market stubbornly refusing to settle down and smooth out, Wall Street has been scrambling to come up with "product" they can sell to gun shy investors.

One such new concept is the Lifestyle fund; an extremely diversified package designed to be the single fund in an investor’s portfolio.

There are two general types of these funds, in which assets are spread out across a wide range of stocks and bonds. In one, securities are held directly, in the other, assets are held through other funds.

Fidelity’s Freedom 2030 is an example of the first type. It targets a specific retirement date, and the cash and bond stakes rise as that date approaches.

This type of fund has created a perception among investors that its value will not drop and that it is safe. But, in fact, these are no safer than a standard mutual fund.

Since we sold all of our investment positions on October 13, 2000 and preserved our capital, Fidelity Freedom 2030 has lost 39% (through 2/21/03). Do you think that’s an isolated incident?

I’m not picking on Fidelity, but here are some of their other Lifestyle funds with returns over the same period:

Fidelity Freedom 2020: -34% Fidelity Freedom 2010: -22%

So much for perceived safety.

The other Wall Street bright idea is the fund of funds (FOF). It sounds good, but it actually creates a double layer of costs; the cost of purchasing the fund itself, and then the expenses of the mutual funds the FOF purchases. Take for example, the Enterprise Group of Funds. It shows an expense ratio of almost 2% plus a sales charge of 4.75% according to Morningstar. Tack on the underlying expenses and you’re paying out more than 3% a year in investment expenses.

If you’re a new investor (with less than $10k), and have your account at a discount broker, you can add a minimum of 1% per year in fees just for the privilege of having an account. That brings the total up to 4% in annual expenses. Talk about adding insult to injury.

FOFs are sometimes being touted as the only fund you need no matter what the investment climate. So, let’s compare to see how the Enterprise fund of funds performed during the same period as mentioned above for the Freedom funds:

Enterprise Group of Funds: -35%.

The bottom line is that no matter what type of mutual fund you choose, or what anybody claims it will do for you, you must be vigilant and see if it does what you were told it would. In investing, there is simply no such thing as a sure thing. Sure you need to know how to recognize a good investment.

But just as important—maybe even more important—you must know when to recognize that a good investment idea didn’t work out, cut your loss, and sell.

About The Author

Ulli Niemann is an investment advisor and has been writing about objective, methodical approaches to investing for over 10 years. He eluded the bear market of 2000 and has helped hundreds of people make better investment decisions. To find out more about his approach and his FREE Newsletter, please visit: http://www.successful-investment.com; ulli@successful-investment.com

The broker told me not to sell because the mutual fund I owned had a 2% redemption fee and they would penalize me if I did.

I got to thinking about it and did some simple math to see what that would cost me if I sold. Several months ago I bought $5,000 of the fund. Fortunately, it was a no-load so I was not charged any commission. It seems that the brokerage house has instituted this fee for the sole purpose of dissuading me from ever selling it.

Now I could sell it for $5,500 and make a nice $500 profit in the last 3 months. Their charge of 2% would be $110. In other words they were charging me 22% of my profit which you can easily figure as $110/$500. That’s a long way from 2%. What a rip. My net was now $390.

More and more brokerage companies and mutual funds are adding redemption fees. No-load mutual funds are adding the fees even when you have an account with the fund family. Why? The fund managers are paid their 6-figure salaries not on how much profit they make for you but on the amount of money they have under management. He can generate big money for himself while you lose.

The whole idea of the mutual fund was to have a professional manager make money for you yet last year more than 95% of stock mutual funds lost money. It is pretty obvious you don’t need this guy to mangle your cash.

In the future before you purchase any fund ask the broker of there is any kind of redemption fee. If there is then find another fund and/or another broker. Discount brokers are the best because their brokers are not allowed to give you advice. You will find that advice from a broker is a eulogy for your money.

Redemption fees are like a ball and chain on your ability to make money. Any professional trader (and I was a floor trader for 17 years) will tell you that a small loss is OK, but never allow yourself to have a large loss. Excess fees are put on by brokerage companies and funds to keep you from selling out of a losing position. The broker does not make any money if your cash sits in a money market account so he will do everything legally possible to keep you from selling.

Buy and Hold might be OK for long-term bull markets, but during the current long-term bear market you should be able to sell without adding injury to insult. Redemption fees are a method to intimidate the investor from selling out a losing position. Don’t buy anything that comes with a ball and chain.

Al Thomas’ book, "If It Doesn’t Go Up, Don’t Buy It!" has helped thousands of people make money and keep their profits with his simple 2-step method. Read the first chapter at http://www.mutualfundmagic.com and discover why he’s the man that Wall Street does not want you to know.

Copyright 2005

It looks like the market is ready to start up again so it is time to buy mutual funds, but you only want to invest your money in funds that go up. First, you don’t want to start with a loss so be sure to purchase no-load mutual funds. There is no need to ever pay commissions as there are several thousand funds that have no commission whatsoever for either buying or selling.

If you talk with a broker he will try to confuse you that a commission fund is better than a no-load fund. He is lying. Find another broker. Also don’t pay any attention to who the fund manager is. All big name fund managers have cold periods when their funds go down.

Another thing the "experts" tell you is look at the expense ratios. Nonsense again. Whether it is 1%, 2% or 3% the only thing you are concerned with is is it going up because that is the net figure for your bank account. If you buy a fund at $20/share and it goes to $40/share do you care if the expense ratio is 10%? (It won’t be.) The only thing that counts is the bottom line.

Now the most important thing. Which no-load fund? There are several good sources. Go to the library to look in recent back issues of Investor’s Business Daily. On the first page of the second section under "Making Money in Mutuals" near the bottom there will be a box listing 25 to 50 funds. You will want to find the top funds for the past 3 months, 6 months and 9 months sometimes in several different issues of the paper. Don’t pay any attention to a longer period of time than 12 months. You want funds that are going up now. In the same paper you will find the toll-free phone numbers listed by the names of the funds.

Or if you can use a computer go to www.smartmoney.com. Click on Mutual Funds. Then click on 25 Top Funds. Here you will find another list of the best performing funds for the past year. Most of them are no-load and if there is a load charge it is shown in the Fee column. There are many Internet sources like this if you want to hunt for them.

Call to be sure they have no redemption fees if you decide to sell them in a short period of time. This is important.

With your computer or you can use one at the library I suggest you go to www.bigcharts.com or www.cbsmarketwatch.com to look up each fund by the symbol. You will immediately see why these particular funds are a good buy. They have been going up even when the general market was going down. As long as this upmove continues you will want to own these funds. When they start down you must sell them to protect your capital and your profits. Never stay with a fund that is going down. Brokers will not do this for you. You must be in charge of your own money.

This may or may not be the start of the next bull market move, but if it is this is the right way to buy mutual funds now or any time. (Cut out and save this column.)

Al Thomas’ book, "If It Doesn’t Go Up, Don’t Buy It!" has helped thousands of people make money and keep their profits with his simple 2-step method. Read the first chapter at http://www.mutualfundmagic.com and discover why he’s the man that Wall Street does not want you to know.

Copyright 2005

al@mutualfundstrategy.com; 1-888-345-7870