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• Are Target Date Funds good, bad or just plain ugly? Target date funds have been in the news quite a lot over the past few years, though the nature of the news seems to have gone from great to bad over that time. Consider that when target date funds were first introduced they were heralded as the pinnacle in the......
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• Investing Term Tuesday: Commodity Index. A commodity index is an index that tracks a collection of commodities in order to measure their performance. Commodity indexes are often traded on exchanges, such as the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). By being traded on an open exchange, investors gain access to commodities without having to deal in......
• 100 Free Trades From Ameritrade. Listen up, investors! If you're looking for free stock trades online, and don't mind opening an account with discount broker Ameritrade, then this could be the deal you've been looking for. Open an account using this link, with an initial deposit of $2,000 and get 100 commision-free Internet equity trades for......
• Investing Term Tuesday: Gold Fix. The Gold Fix is the act whereby the price of gold is set, twice daily, by the 5 members of the London gold pool. This price is used as a benchmark for most of the global gold products and derivatives pricing. This "fixing" of the gold price by the......

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Here’s a head’s up for anyone holding these stocks – Fair Isaac, Boyd Gaming and Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P). A recent SmartMoney article has hilighted these 3 stocks as having garnered more “sell” recommendations than “buys” in recent weeks.

Fair Isaac (FICO)
Fair Isaac’s performance is dependent upon consumers using credit, and spending money. Since the recession struck in 2008, consumers have done little spending and even less borrowing.

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Boyd Gaming (BYD)
Boyd Gaming owns Casinos in big gambling towns like Vegas and Atlantic City. The company has a high debt load, and people aren’t flocking to Vegas (its largest market) like they did two years ago. Sales fell 14% last year and are expected to fall another 7% this year which make repaying that debt a long road.

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Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (GAP)
A.K.A. the grocer A&P. While the company hasn’t turned a profit in more than 2 years, and halted its dividend in 2000 the stock price has more than doubled since the summer. The reason appears to be speculation of a potential merger. Merger talks seem to be fading fast, and there’s not much else to recommend this stock.

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• 3 High Growth Small Caps for 2009-2010. Here are 3 small cap stocks that you probably haven't heard of, but they each have at least a 25% increase in sales over last year - a time in which most companies have seen sales take a big hit. K12. Market Cap: $548 million Estimated sales growth for current......
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Champagne Stock is slang for a stock that has appreciated dramatically.

Champagne stocks make shareholders a great deal of money, usually relatively quickly. Champagne stocks are also commonly part of an industry or sector that is experiencing a bubble.

This term derives its meaning from the habit of individuals who hold such stocks to celebrate their good fortune by ordering an expensive bottle of champagne.

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• Investing 101: Mutual Funds (Welcome back!  I hope you are ready for some learning, as we are going to cover the wonderful world of mutual funds.  Hold onto your hats, it's going to be a wacky ride.) Q: What are mutual funds? A: Mutual funds are companies that buy a variety of other investments,......

These are peculiar times we find ourselves in. Here’s a list of funds from Kiplinger that not only cover just about every bogeyman bandied about in the financial press these days, but hit upon some classic needs in a mutual fund as well.

Inflation protection

Sooner or later, the reckless monetary policy in Washington D.C. is going to catch up with us, and it will likely result in much higher inflation than we’ve seen in recent times. To combat that threat to your wealth, you may want to look into Fidelity Strategic Real Return (FSRRX). This fund holds a mix of 30% inflation indexed government bonds, 25% commodities, 20% real estate, and 25% floating rate loans. Diversification should provide for a smoother ride, and each asset type benefits from rising prices.

Net Asset Value (NAV):8.40
Yield: 2.58%
YTD Return: 22.12%
5y Avg Return: N/A
Rank in Category (ytd): 122
% Rank in Category (ytd): 18.86%
Beta (3y): 0.88
Morningstar Risk Rating: Above average

Benefit from a recovery

Eventually, the economy is bound to recover, and when it does you’ll want to be in the T. Rowe Price Mid-Cap Growth (RPMGX), or so the staff at Kiplinger say. The manager of this fund focuses on fast growing companies, with high returns on investment capital. Small and mid-cap stocks typically lead out of a recession anyway, so this seems like a good choice for a recovery fund. It’s a bit expensive however, with an NAV of 46.06.

NAV:46.06
yield: N/A
YTD Return: 38.69%
5y Avg Return: 6.27%
Rank in Category (ytd): 204
% Rank in Category (ytd): 23.94%
Beta (3y): 1.11
Morningstar Risk Rating: Average

Benefit from the falling dollar.

The Merk Hard Currency Inv (MERKX) fund seeks to profit form a declining dollar by investing in gold and money market securities, denominated in foreign currencies. The fund does not appear to have a Morningstar rating, and the ratio of investments in currency to gold is not readily apparent, so be sure to read the prospectus on this one carefully before you invest.

NAV:12.41
yield: N/A
YTD Return: 12.69%
5y Avg Return: N/A
Rank in Category (ytd): 0
% Rank in Category (ytd): 0%
Beta (3y): -0.70
Morningstar Risk Rating: None.

Best new fund.

Kiplinger’s pick for best new fund is the Third Avenue Focused Credit Investor (TFCVX) fund. Their reason seems to be that the fund sponsor, Third Avenue, seldom launches new funds so it must be good! I’m not sure that’s enough for me to invest in a fund, but it does seem interesting enough to examine further.

Third Avenue Focused Credit Investor focuses on junk debt, specifically convertible bonds and distressed securities. Need I say that these are risky investments? Still, much of the risk may be wrung out of them since the toxic asset debacle of 2008. You’ll have to do your own gut check on this one, as well as your own research because there isn’t a lot of information or history out there for this fund yet.

Low minimum required investment.

Most mutual funds require minimum investment amounts that put the fund out of reach for the small investor, especially one just starting out. But some funds pride themselves on keeping a low minimum. Kiplinger rates their best low minimum fund pick for 2009 to be the same as last year: Amana Trust Growth (AMAGX) fund. The minimum investment is $250, and the fund focuses on large cap growth companies. While the managers choose their investments using Muslim principles as a guide, the fund is open to all investors.

It’s interesting to not that Morningstar gives this fund a below average rating. Keep in mind that the average here is among all large cap growth funds, not just low minimum funds.

NAV: 20.66
yield: N/A
YTD Return: 22.28%
5y Avg Return: 8.93%
Rank in Category (ytd): 1280
% Rank in Category (ytd): 70.95%
Beta (3y): 0.75
Morningstar Risk Rating: Below average

• 3 Recommended Pimco Bond Funds. Bonds are an important part of any good asset allocation, and here are 3 bond funds from the Pimco firm as recommended in a recent Kiplinger magazine article. PIMCO bond total return (PTTAX). Manager Bill Gross sticks to investment grade, intermediate-term U.S. bonds for this fund. The expense ratio for......
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• Beware Target-Date Funds! Target-date funds were supposed to be the ultimate idiot-proof investment vehicle for retirement savings. The idea is that asset allocation is the single most important factor in determining investing success, and most people get it wrong. Many others never even try because they find the concept too daunting. Many people......
• Mutual Fund Monday: The Biggest Lies Mutual Fund Companies Tell. Chuck Jaffe at MarketWatch has a great piece that I thought I'd share for my (semi) weekly Mutual Fund Monday post this week. His article lists 7 ways that fund companies manipulate their stats to trick investors. It's all quite legal, since much of it depends on your the viewpoint......
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Kiplinger has released their annual “best of” edition, where they rate the best of just about everything. One of the categories is ETF’s. I thought I’d share the picks, and some thoughts on them here, but you should check out the complete issue if you get a chance.

Best ETF for Income.

Kiplinger’s pick for best Income ETF is the iShares iBoxx $ Invest Grade Corp Bond (LQD) ETF. It not only has a decent yield, but a pretty good return so far for the year, especially for a bond ETF – 11.65%.

LQD generally seeks to match the price and yield performance of the iBoxx $ Liquid Investment Grade Index. LQD invests 90% or more of assets in the bonds of the underlying index, with at least 95% in investment grade corporate bonds. The remaining 5% of assets can be in U.S. government obligations, and in cash and cash equivalents. It is a non diversified fund, meaning there is no stock component, only bonds. That’s something to consider if diversification is important in the income portion of your portfolio.

Not only has this fund outpaced most other corporate bond ETF’s, it also pays a monthly dividend.

YTD Return: 11.65%
Yield : 5.38%
Total Expense Ratio 0.15%

Best ETF for Those Seeking a High Return.

Kiplinger’s first of two Vanguard funds recommended in this article is the Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock ETF (VWO). It’s no wonder either, with an expense ratio of only 0.20%, and a total return year to date of a whopping 62.82%!

Vanguard’s Emerging Markets Stock ETF tracks the performance of the MSCI Emerging Markets index. It’s a passively managed fund which invests all or nearly all of its assets in a representative sample of the common stocks included in the MSCI Emerging Markets index.

YTD Return: 62.82%
Yield: 3.11%
Total Expense Ratio 0.2%

Small companies.

The second Vanguard fund recommended is the Vanguard Small Cap ETF (VB).

The VB ETF tracks a benchmark MSCI US Small Cap 1750 index. It invests all or nearly all of its assets in stocks that make up that index. Like all Vanguard ETF’s, the VB has a low expense ratio (0.1%), but a high (for small cap stocks) yield of 1.76% – and it’s had a pretty good run this year.

YTD Return: 30.92%
Yield: 1.76%
Total Expense Ratio 0.1%

Complete portfolio.

The iShares S&P Growth Allocation (AOR) ETF is like a one stop shop for your somewhat generic allocation with moderate risk portfolio. It invests 60-70% in stocks, and 30-40% in fixed income securities like bonds and REITs.

It’s a great out of the box portfolio for the investor who isn’t sure what he should be investing in and what kind of allocation it should be.

YTD Return: 15.70%
Yield: N/A
Total Expense Ratio 0.11%

• A Sample ETF Portfolio for Long Term Growth. Here's an all ETF portfolio that's sure to see some volatility. It's geared toward long term growth, and as such it invests heavily in small cap stocks, foreign markets and commodities. The fund total is 90% stocks, 10% commodities and is best left to investors with long time horizons and......
• The One-Minute Portfolio. Here's the ultimate in super-simple investment portfolios, for those who don't have the time or inclination to pick and monitor individual stocks. The One-Minute Portfolio. The One-Minute Portfolio is comprised of just 3 asset allocations: Domestic Stocks, Foreign Stocks and Bonds. Here's a recommendation for each category: 1. Buy America......
• Mutual Fund Monday: PIMCO Launching New Global Fund. According to a recent Edgar filing , PIMCO will soon be launching a new fund: PIMCO Global Opportunities Fund . It's going to be a global value fund of common and preferred stock. The fund will target equities in one of 3 countries, one of which may be the U.S........
• How Much Do Mutual Funds Really Cost? Q. How much does it cost to own a mutual fund? A. More than you think. Most investors know about a fund's expense ratio, and use that attribute for comparing various funds before buying. But there are a host of hidden costs that are much more difficult to uncover for......
• A Sample ETF Portfolio for Maximum Income (and Fat, Juicy Yields). With the low fees and wide selection of ETFs, you can now build a portfolio for maximum and minimum fees relatively easily. Here's one such sample portfolio from Kiplinger that allocates 65% to bonds, 35% to stocks. The bond section is spread between conservative, laddered treasures and riskier junk bonds.......

• What's an Expense Ratio? After reviewing which posts were popular on my site last week, I noticed that starting an IRA was number one. I think one deterrent for people investing is the terminology associated with that. I decided to help out by putting out some quick posts demystifying financial lingo. Today's term......
• Four Important Metrics To Compare Index Funds Index funds are by far my favorite investment vehicle.  They are passive, cheap, come in practically any asset class you could think of, and most importantly tend to outperform the competition over long periods of time.  Hopefully by now you're convinced index funds are the way to go, but how......
• Are ETFs a Good Way to Create Secondary Streams of Income? ETFs, or Exchange Traded Funds, are all the rage in the investment world, but so far, they really don’t have much of a track record. This is a fairly new method for investing and the long term data just isn’t there to determine how effective these investments can be over......
• How To Be A Smart Investor In Any Investment Environment [I've been a little backed up with my busy schedule of floating in the ocean and hotel pool in Aruba. Oh, and it's not like the steak here is going to eat itself. So while I get back to that, enjoy this guest post from fellow Money Writer, The Digerati......
• Investing for Baby Boomers - A Book Review "You're Fifty - Now What?  Investing for the Second Half of Your Life" (Charles R. Schwab) I admit it, I'm a baby boomer.  That means I read books with words like "fifty" in the title, including this one.  It could have been titled "Investing for Baby Boomers" (as I've listed it in the......

401(k) plans can be a great way to save for retirement and let your savings grow tax-free. But the plans are chosen by employers and managed by 3rd parties and don’t always have the best options. IRAs give you the entire universe of investments to choose from, but most employers offer a free match on a percentage of contributions to the 401(k) plans by the employee. So what’s an employee to do when the 401(k) plan has lousy investment options?

Here are 5 options, though there may be more.

1. Be an index hugger.

If your 401(k) plan offers index funds, then you can still get broad-based exposure and diversification at a low cost. You won’t be beating the market, but you won’t under perform the market either.

2. Take the best and move on.

If your 401(k) plan has one or two excellent funds and a dozen other mediocre funds, take the one or two and skip the others. This may seem like you’re not properly diversifying, but you should consider your entire collection of assets when diversifying, not just a single account.

For example, say your 401(k) plan has one excellent blue chip stock fund, and an equally excellent small cap stock fund, but the bond funds are lousy. You should invest in the stock funds offered by your 401(k) and invest the overall bond allocation in some other account, like an IRA account or maybe your spouse’s 401(k). Each individual account will be non-diversified, but when taken together your total assets will be diversified.

3. Look into the “window”.

More and more large employers are offering 401(k) plans with a “brokerage window” or “self-directed accounts.” These options allow the employee access to hundreds or thousands of other mutual funds, ETF’s and even individual stocks that aren’t part of the standard 401(k) plans options.

Be sure to investigate the details and learn about any additional fees or transaction costs that may be associated with the use of the “window”. There may be additional work on your end as well, since this option is unlikely to be available for automatic contributions like the standard 401(k) options. You may need to fill out additional paperwork or make other such declarations.

4. Talk to HR.

If you think your 401(k) plan stinks and you can get other coworkers to join you, you can petition your HR department to change the plan, or go with a new plan provider altogether. The more employees unhappy with the status quo, the more likely you can get your employer to change things.

5. Check out other options.

If all else fails, you can always go it alone with an IRA account. But if you get a company match on your contributions, then pick the best fund that’s offered and contribute at least enough to get the full company match and put the rest in an IRA. There’s no point in passing up free money, no matter how lousy the fund options are.

• Top 5 Best Investors. Here are the top 5 Investors of all time, as picked by  Investopedia. But first, the criteria... The list is based on 4 factors: The investor is a long term performer - that is one with a long history of beating their bench mark index(es). The investor or manager must......
• Investing for free in 2010 with ING Direct! Here's a freebie for your Friday... Open an IRA & invest for FREE in 2010! ING Direct is offering a year's worth of investing credits if you open an IRA with them before April 15, 2010. Here are the details: no-fee IRA free Automatic Investment Plan (AIP) credits to use......
• 100 Free Trades From Ameritrade. Listen up, investors! If you're looking for free stock trades online, and don't mind opening an account with discount broker Ameritrade, then this could be the deal you've been looking for. Open an account using this link, with an initial deposit of $2,000 and get 100 commision-free Internet equity trades for......
• A Tale of 4 High Income Bond Funds. Bonds have gotten a lot of attention over the past year and it's easy to see why when you look at this chart. What you're looking at is a relatively smooth ride up until the world collapsed in October of 2008. The investorspeak for that smooth ride is "low volatility",......
• Mutual Fund Monday: PIMCO Launching New Global Fund. According to a recent Edgar filing , PIMCO will soon be launching a new fund: PIMCO Global Opportunities Fund . It's going to be a global value fund of common and preferred stock. The fund will target equities in one of 3 countries, one of which may be the U.S........

• IRA, 401(k), and HSA Contribution and Funding Limits for 2009 Now is the time for baby boomers to consider and finalize plans for funding their retirement plans for 2009.  I have thought about a variety of issues related to these funding decisions. First, analyze your options if your employer has stopped matching 401(k) contributions. Second, determine if funding an IRA......
• Personal Retirement Plan Investment Options Good financial management consists of two different distinct facets, the first of which is learning how to make the best use out of your limited earned income in order to best meet your current expenses, and the second of which has to do with learning how to implement strategies that......
• What if Your Employer Stops Matching 401k Contributions? It is unfortunate to read about so many businesses cutting costs by reducing or eliminating the match of their employees' 401(k) contributions.  This is a particularly devastating blow to the retirement plans of baby boomers who have been depending on the employer match to rebuild dwindling 401k account balances.  Fortunately, this......
• Dialing In On Selecting a VoIP Service Provider VoIP service providers convey data transmissions of IP telephony signaling protocols called SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) which are fundamentally used for voice over IP (VoIP) calls. The provider is the main hub between networks which allow land line and VoIP users to connect.Substantial savings from your traditional phone statement......
• Why 401(k) Can Spell "Lousy Retirement Plan" Mr. ToughMoneyLove doesn't have have a pension plan or a golden parachute.  When I leave my job for good, my employer will say thanks (by then, probably more like "thanks for finally leaving") and cut me a small check for the book value of my stock in the business.  ......

I’m down with the flu this week, which means I’m taking it easy – but not too easy. I’m catching up on some reading and found some nuggets of knowledge regarding mutual funds that you may not already know about and you may enjoy reading. So, without further ado (because I need to get to bed now), the blogs:

First up, from  The Oblivious Investor, comes
11 Tips for Selecting Mutual Funds. This short, concise list of things that matter (and why they matter) when picking a mutual fund will ensure you get in the right frame of mind, before you do anything rash and costly.

Next, the Amateur Asset Allocator has a great primer on the various Types Of Mutual Funds that will help sort out the differences between open-ended, closed-ended, indexed vs. actively managed and more.

And lastly, while we’re on the subject of index funds, Retirement Savior reminds us that some mutual funds do outperform indexes, and tells us when (and why) When NOT to Use Index Funds.

• How Much Do Mutual Funds Really Cost? Q. How much does it cost to own a mutual fund? A. More than you think. Most investors know about a fund's expense ratio, and use that attribute for comparing various funds before buying. But there are a host of hidden costs that are much more difficult to uncover for......
• Tips on Speculating in the Stock Market. I usually feel more in line with value investor Ben Graham's line of thinking, but after reading Jim Cramer's Real Money, I have come to see that there is a time and place for some of the speculator's techniques. Just because favor one school of thought, doesn't mean another doesn't......
• Beware Target-Date Funds! Target-date funds were supposed to be the ultimate idiot-proof investment vehicle for retirement savings. The idea is that asset allocation is the single most important factor in determining investing success, and most people get it wrong. Many others never even try because they find the concept too daunting. Many people......
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• Investing 101: Mutual Funds (Welcome back!  I hope you are ready for some learning, as we are going to cover the wonderful world of mutual funds.  Hold onto your hats, it's going to be a wacky ride.) Q: What are mutual funds? A: Mutual funds are companies that buy a variety of other investments,......
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• Wealth Creation Is The Outcome Of A Simple Step Towards Systematic Investment Wealth creation out of capital market can be very tough and time consuming task. The people who earn through capital markets have to give too much of time to understand its every aspect. But with mutual funds, investing in capital market has become all the more simpler and less......

By now, we now the sad story of the large national investment banks like Bear Stearns, AIG, Citigroup et. al.. Such examples give pause to investors, as they should, but they also taint the entire financial sector.

Believe it or not, there are many banks that stuck to lending and banking principles and never ventured into derivatives and toxic assets. Shares in these banks, usually small, regional banks, have taken a hit. Call it guilt by association. It’s unfair, but it creates great opportunity for investors who can stomach the kind of volatility that often accompanies such subjective discrimination.

Here are three smaller banks, recently recommended by SmartMoney magazine.

Provident Financial Services (PFS)
Provident is a well run, new jersey bank with a solid balance sheet and enough cash on hand to ride out the current recession. Provident has 82 branches and only 1.5% of their loans are “nonperforming”, which is well under the industry average. The stock trades at 1.1 times the tangible book value, which is cheap for any sector.

City National (CYN)
City National is located in Beverly Hills, CA and caters to the affluent (think high-end Hollywood). Analysts expect earnings to rise sharply in 2010. They currently have $28 billion in assets, and $13 billion in deposits. Though the price has fallen 26% on worries of exposure to California’s pummeled real estate market, analysts say that the bank has high quality assets and earnings should “rise significantly.”

TCF Financial (TCB)
While loan losses have been increasing, this Midwest bank has a stable deposit growth and commercial leasing business. This is by far the riskiest bank on the list, but it shouldn’t be destined for bailout/failure country. Analysts say the “repair work is ongoing”, which may make for a few more rocky quarters, but patient investors should be rewarded.

• 3 Key Signals When Timing The Stock Market I'm not a practitioner of market timing, and I'm not a proponent of it. That being said, I read an article about it in a recent issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine that made me reconsider. To be fair, the article was more about timing big swings in the overall......
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• 3 Options for College Saving Accounts. It seems counter intuitive, that choosing the wrong kind of savings account for your child's college fund could actually cost your child more, but that's the world we live in - make the wrong choice, and your child may lose thousands of dollars in financial aid come enrollment time. According......
• Best Funds To Invest In Now. These are peculiar times we find ourselves in. Here's a list of funds from Kiplinger that not only cover just about every bogeyman bandied about in the financial press these days, but hit upon some classic needs in a mutual fund as well. Inflation protection Sooner or later, the reckless......
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• Macau Government Guarantees Unlimited Bank Deposits Until 2010 The government of Macau Tuesday said it would provide unlimited bank guarantees on deposits in Macau banks, estimated at a total of US$32.5 billion (260 billion patacas), MacauNews reported Wednesday.Macau’s Secretary for the Economy and Finance, Francis Tam said at a press conference that the government would, “provide loans or......
• How strong is your piggy bank? A saving plan is essential for long-term financial security.  Just as important, though, is knowing oneself well enough to know how far out of reach those savings have to be for them to stay there until the proper time.  For people that don't have spending problems, a checking account is......

I had always heard that investors should rebalance their portfolios at least once a year, maybe twice a year and at the same time every year. But I never heard that everyone should rebalance at the same time of year, yet that’s exactly the basis of a recent Wall Street Journal article:

Given the remarkable run in share prices, prudent, long-term investors should consider rebalancing their holdings to lock in gains and return their portfolios to a more diverse position. Advisers usually tell investors they should do this at the start of each year.

I’ve shied away from the beginning of the year because that’s when many people’s bonuses come in, and some of those find their way into the market. By rebalancing before the new year, I’ve got my asset allocation in order before this new money comes in.

The article points out that after the recent market rebound from it’s March low makes it especially important to rebalance. After all, if the market should take another tumble toward those lows, your asset allocation could be so out of whack that it could magnify those losses even more.

“The exception to doing it annually or on a calendar basis is when you see significant shifts in asset values,” says David Fleisher, co-founder and president of Firstrust Financial Resources in Philadelphia. “A 50% rise in the stock market, as we’ve seen, would qualify.”

I couldn’t agree more.

I actually have my portfolio set to rebalance automatically every October anyway so I’m set for this go around, but this article got me wondering when people usually

• Reliability of Income, the New ROI. The 2008-2009 market crash and resulting bear market have been absolutely brutal to new retirees and soon to be retirees alike. For those in my age set (about 30 years out from retirement) it serves as a poignant lesson of what can go wrong. To Mary Beth Franklin, editor of......
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• Ivy League Investing For The Common Man. David Swensen has managed the Yale University endowment from 1984 to 2008 and during that time, the endowment returned an annualized 16.6% - 5 points better than the S&P 500 and a generic balanced portfolio of 60% in a stock index, and 40% in bond index. That equates to a......
• Best ETF's For... Kiplinger has released their annual "best of" edition, where they rate the best of just about everything. One of the categories is ETF's. I thought I'd share the picks, and some thoughts on them here, but you should check out the complete issue if you get a chance. Best ETF......
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• Are single stocks too risky? If you've listened to the Dave Ramsey show for any length of time, you'll hear him say that he doesn't invest in single stocks. Instead, he invests in "good growth mutual funds and paid-for real estate". His reasoning is that single stocks are too risky. I wonder though, is that......
• Investment Mistakes in a Bear Market This is a guest article by Ray, the owner and primary author of Financial Highway, where he discusses investing, saving and practical money management concepts. You can check subscribe to his RSS feed or follow him on Twitter. Investing seems scary, and investing during a bear market is even scarier.......
• Commercial Real Estate Q&A #3: Running from Hotels and Successful Commercial Real Estate Investing Strategies Steve Maxwell's take: I also prefer commercial RE over residential … although both have their benefits.  2 of the biggest reasons for my preference are: 1. Leverage – I’ve found that acquire a multi-unit property such as a 200-unit complex is no where near 200 times as much effort......
• Review of Bill Schultheis' The New Coffeehouse Investor The author's marketing company kindly sent me a complimentary company of Bill Schultheis' latest reworking of his book: The New Coffeehouse Investor.  According to the "about the author" section in the book, Mr. Schultheis is an investment adviser with Soundmark Wealth Management, LLC, a fee-only registered investment adviser located in......
• Investing in a Crisis With so much uncertainty currently present in the marketplace, one of the most vital things that you can do to invest safely in a crisis market is simply to learn from mistakes in the past. Certain sectors of the market may seem incredibly attractive in times of a crisis, it......

Investors who own shares of mutual funds are probably familiar with the 3 most common classes of shares: A, B, and C. But recent market conditions have led over 400 mutual funds to eliminate class B shares form their offerings.

The reason for the elimination is cost. It simply costs the fund company less to offer fewer classes of shares.

Class-A Shares charge a front-load commission that is taken off your initial investment.

Class B Shares often carry deceptively high annual fees.

Class C Shares charge a fee when you sell the shares.

The tracking and bookkeeping is apparently not worth the return on B class shares for many fund companies. Given the fact that class B shares can be automatically converted to Class A shares after a certain period of time, it’s easy to see why they can be an added hassle for fund companies. This is especially true if investors are trading more frequently, and the company would make more on the buy and sell loads charged from class A and C shares.

For a much more detailed overview of the definitions and differences of mutual fund share classes, see The ABCs Of Mutual Fund Classes at Investopedia’s site.

For a better option, you might want to look into ETFs. The only load they carry is the brokerage commission, which can be less than $10 at most online brokers.

There is no correlation to paying higher fees, and earning a greater return on your investment so why pay more?

Case studies.

Here are 3 big-name mutual fund companies that have recently eliminated their class B share offerings.

American Funds. Citing a loss of investor interest, American funds eliminated it’s B shares in April. Maybe the lack of investor interest was due to the fact that the B class shares charged investors a penalty if they were sold within 7 years of purchase.

Evergreen Investments is a subsidiary of Wells Fargo. They eliminated their class B offers in June stating a desire to respond to “client needs.”

Charles Schwab had no load funds anyway, but still eliminated its share classes for simplicity.

• 5 Things to Do When You Have a Bad 401(k) Plan. 401(k) plans can be a great way to save for retirement and let your savings grow tax-free. But the plans are chosen by employers and managed by 3rd parties and don't always have the best options. IRAs give you the entire universe of investments to choose from, but most employers......
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• Mutual Fund Monday: The Biggest Lies Mutual Fund Companies Tell. Chuck Jaffe at MarketWatch has a great piece that I thought I'd share for my (semi) weekly Mutual Fund Monday post this week. His article lists 7 ways that fund companies manipulate their stats to trick investors. It's all quite legal, since much of it depends on your the viewpoint......
• Mutual Fund Monday - What 2009 Trends Mean for 2010. Many investors take the change in calendar year as an opportunity to assess their portfolios and the future, and hopefully get their portfolios aligned with the future direction of the stock market. One way in which to do this is to look back on the year that's passed and see......
• Mutual Fund Monday - Blogosphere Feb 2010 Edition. It's Mutual Fund Monday again, and I thought that I'd do something a little different this week. Rather than focus on a single fund or concept about funds, I'm focusing on a topic and sharing some of the interesting posts I've found on other blogs recently about that topic. The......

• Load vs. no load The latest investment-related concept I've been investigating is load vs. no-load funds. Then within the load funds, there are front-end loads and back-end loads. This is how I understand the concept: If you invest in a fund with a load, it means that you pay an additional fee. That fee......
• Mutual Funds 101 One way that investors can pool their money is mutual funds, which allows them to invest together in a variety of different stocks. Each of the participating investors is charged a percentage fee based on what they invest so that the professional fund manager can receive payment for his work......
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• Mutual Funds Introduction It is really not much of an exaggeration for you to say that mutual funds are one of the best things that the middle class can take advantage of financially since the invention of sliced bread. What mutual funds do, is they allow for investors that have small amounts of......
• A Story of How Loaded Mutual Funds Work A few weeks ago I met with a financial "advisor" from an insurance company as a favor to my fiance's friend. The advisor works on a "referral basis", which means he gets commissions from the products he sells. I know the game and how he works, so I tweeted about......