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 topic: ETFs.

ETFs, or exchange traded funds, first became available to investors in 1993 and have since evolved from being simple index trackers to being full blown portfolios or hedge funds of their own. There’s much mistaken knowledge about ETFs and much confusion. Hopefully these posts will help set you straight on ETFs. Even if you think you know all about them, there is probably a thing or two you didn’t know.

How to Choose ETFs for Your Portfolio from Oblivious Investor is a great place to start when beginning to add ETFs to your portfolio. He examines the usual suspects in regards to the important factors of an ETF, like expense ratio and which index it tracks; but he also covers some lesser known or often overlooked factors like the Bid/Ask Spread of the fund.

Not sure about ETFs, or too sure about them? Be sure to check out Ten Myths About ETF Investing from ETFdb before you make another decision about ETFs

Do you think Charles Schwab Might be the Best Choice for Passive Investors? Steadfast Finances does, and he explains why as well as why you should care. Very interesting post..

Lastly in our ETF posts this week is a post by Dividend Tree in which he reminds us of one of the single most important details about Investing in ETFs – Know What You are Investing In. Some of this is related I think to the 10 myths of ETFs from ETFdb above. Many investors think all ETFs are created the same and they invest in what the name suggests, but Dividend Tree shows that this is not always true.

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With thousands of mutual funds to choose from, picking the “right one” can be a daunting task. Most investors know not to fall for a short term hot streak – one or two years isn’t a long enough track record to show superior skill of the management team over sheer luck – but where should you start?

Step 1.  Figure out what you really need.

To be a successful investor, be it in mutual funds, hedge funds or whatever, you need to determine what your objectives really are and what asset allocation you’ll need to meet those objectives. And sorry to tell you this, but “to get rich” is not an objective.

Objective.

For your objective to be meaningful and achievable, it needs to be specific. If you can determine exact numbers, then you’re off to a great start. But even if the numbers are not exact or may even be unknowable, you can still use that as an objective.

For example, if your objective is to have $25,000 in 5 – 7 years for a new car, then you have a defined timeframe, and target amount. From that you can then figure out how much you can invest over that time  frame and see how much return on your money you’ll need to get there. (There are calculators for this kind of thing).

Even if your objective is a bit less knowable, say saving for retirement, you can use ballpark figures for determine the “best guess” for what you’ll need 15, 20, even 30 years out from today. The key is knowing that this is just a guess, based on current trends. In the case of retirement planning you reevaluate your goals and assumptions on a regular basis, every 5 -10 years for example.

The Takeaway. The point to take away from all of this is that your objective (amount and time frame) will be a key component in determining your risk level and asset allocation. You can (and should) invest more heavily in stocks for retirement which is decades away than for the objective that’s 5-7 years away.

Asset Allocation.

Put simply, an asset allocation is which types of investments you choose to put your money in, and in what proportions.

Different types, or classes of investments carry with them different levels of risk and average return. Bonds, for instance, are typically less risky than stocks, though that is a generalization since there are subclasses of stocks and bonds that can be very similar in terms of risk and reward.

Key points of concern are correlation (how much one investment be behaves like another), volatility, and risk.

The Takeaway. Some studies have shown that asset allocation alone is responsible for up to 90% of your total return, so be sure to study up on this stage and know what you’re doing.

Step 2. Picking mutual funds.

Since this article is about mutual funds, I will focus on that aspect of an asset allocation. But remember – if your investment goals are short term, then mutual funds may not be right for you.

Searching for a mutual fund.

If you have an idea of what type of fund you’re looking for, say a small cap stock fund, and you’d like to see what mutual funds fit that category, you can use Kiplinger’s Fund Finder. This tool allows you to select broad categories (like small cap stock funds) and narrow the results by a host of criteria, including:

• 1,3 or 5 year return.
• Morningstar rating.
• Return in a down market (i.e. worst loss).
• Expense ratio.
• Turnover ratio.
• Length of time the current management team has been in place.

And much more. It’s very handy for gathering a list of mutual funds to choose from, but you still need to do some comparison work, but more on that in a minute.

Gathering information on a specific fund.

Once you have a list of funds, or maybe you’re looking for details about a specific fund in your 401(k), you can use FINRA’s Fund Analyzer to get the specifics about a fund.

These results include average return of a given investment amount over a specified period of time, and the total expenses. It also provides a breakdown of the allocation within the fund, investment style of the fund (i.e. growth, vs value, etc..) the Morningstar rating and much more.

Some thoughts on past performance not guaranteeing future results…

By now I’m sure you’ve heard that familiar phrase of investment marketing: “Past performance is not a guarantee of future return”, or something similar. It’s usually uttered as a means of protecting themselves from costly liability in court situations, but it is also a significant thing to bear in mind when picking a fund.

The thing to remember is that just because a fund had a rip-roaring 3 years does not mean it’s going to continue to rip and roar its way up the charts for the next 3 years. Maybe it was a small cap stock fund and the economy has just come out of a recession. If that’s the case, then you can expect those returns to level off a bit as the economic cycle matures and investors seek blue chip companies over small cap.

But long term performance can be a good indicator of a fund’s quality. Look for good for funds with good performance over a 5-10 year period.

Some thoughts on volatility…

Volatility is simple a measure of how much the fund’s price jumps around; it’s a measure of how much of a roller coaster ride the fund is. The lower the volatility, the smoother the ride, but not necessarily the higher return. The thing to keep in mind with volatility is that it doesn’t matter how bumpy the ride is if you don’t need the money for another 20 years. In other words, volatility is less important for long term investments.

Some thoughts on Managers…

Things you’ll want to know about the fund’s manager include:

• Does the manager admit mistakes?
• Does the manager respect the investors?
• Does the manager sound too greedy?
• Does the manager know what he’s talking about?
• Is the manager personally invested in the fund? (that’s a good thing)
• Does the manager stick to his stated strategy?

One last thought about fees…

Not all funds are created equal, and one of the biggest defining characteristics of a fund may be its fees. All other things being equally, higher fee funds will perform worse than lower fee funds. But things are rarely equally and the thing you need to find out is whether the higher fee fund significantly outperforms its peers over an extended period. In other words, is it worth the extra money? If it’s just doing the same as an index fund, it’s not worth the money.

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The Mutual Fund Monday post this week is a highlight of a recent post from Kyle over at Amateur Asset Allocator .

Millions of Americans own mutual funds in their 401(k) plans, and many others own them in their IRA’s or even in a taxable, non-retirement account. But many people don’t have any idea of how to really compare the funds that are available to them. Here’s a hint – it goes beyond simply finding the highest return for a given time period (Ex: 1, 3,5 or ten years).

Kyle’s post is a great explanation of how to compare mutual funds, and their associated indexes. He explains how to compare apples to apples, and not apple to oranges (all mutual funds are not created equal!). He also explains the basics of knowing which index to compare a fund’s performance to, and why. And lastly, he explains how to compare two mutual funds – and more important, how not to.

So what are you waiting for? Head on over and give him a read.

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These managers were chosen by Morningstar as the best of the decade because the “deftly steered investors through good times and bad“.

That’s saying something. Investing in the ’80’s and 90’s was pretty clear cut, but the 1st decade of the 21st century was anything but easy.

As with the best Fund Managers of 2009 award, the Best Manager of the Decade award is not just about overall returns, but rather the risks assumed by the manager to get those returns, as well as their stewardship of the funds.

Size is also a consideration, since it’s more meaningful (and challenging) to earn big returns with a large asset pool, than a small one.

Fixed Income

Bill Gross
PIMCO Total Return: 7.7%; Category Average: 5.5%

The winner for the Fixed Income category is legendary investor Bill Gross. As Morningstar puts it: “No other fund manager made more money for people than Bill Gross.”

The PIMCO Total Return Fund was $32 billion large at the start of the decade, but Gross didn’t let that hinder him. By the end of the decade, the fund held over $200 billion in assets but Gross was still able to outsmart the market and is still doing so today.

Domestic Equity

Bruce Berkowitz
Fairholme: 13.2%; Category Average: 0.01%

Winner of the Domestic Equity category is Bruce Berkowitz, who was a practical unknown when he started the Fairholme (FAIRX) fund in December of 1999. Back then, technology and telecom growth funds were the “new economy” and the thought of starting a value fund was laughable. That didn’t stop Berkowitz. His ability to stick to his value oriented philosophy has earned him not just great returns over the past decade, but the award for Best Domestic Equity Fund manager of the decade.

Foreign Equity

David Herro
Oakmark International: 8.2%; Category Average: 3.2%
Oakmark International Small Cap: 10.1%; Category Average: 6.1%

David Herro is not only an eclectic contrarian, he’s also been right more often than not over the past decade, or at least right when it counts. He’s another value investor (notice a theme here? ), but he focuses on only 50-60 stocks, and isn’t afraid to dive in when others flee – provided he sees value selling at a bargain.

His relatively small number of holdings mean his funds don’t also track the relevant benchmarks and peers, but that’s not always a bad thing. It can however, mean some additional risk and his funds have had poor performance in some years, but have always bounced back quite well.

Read more at Morningstar.

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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..

Criteria used for determining whether a stock is undervalued by the market include: asset value, book value and cash flow and earnings estimates.

The Fund considers large and mid cap companies to have a market capitalization greater than $1.5 billion, but the fund is not limited by size and may invest without limitation in securities that are economically tied to foreign countries as well as emerging market countries.

The fund is also not limited solely to stocks and may also invest in U.S. and foreign government debt and other debt securities like bank loans. PIMCO selects such securities on the basis of value and not just rate or rating. This leaves the management team open to high yield bonds (A.K.A. Junk Bonds) and any rating.

As you can see, this is a pretty unlimited fund, and not strictly adhering to any one market cap, investing style or security type but it could make for a good core holding. The folks at PIMCO have a good name, and their bond team are among some of the few to have not only called the mortgage meltdown successfully, but also positioned their funds to take advantage at just the right time.

Since the fund can invest in both equities and debt securities in foreign countries, this opens them up to being susceptible to equity risk, currency risk, leverage risk and pretty much any other kind of risk when investing in anything other than CDs.

PIMCO has not yet named portfolio managers for the fund.

If you’re interested in this fund, feel free to read the whole Edgar filing – it’s informative, but not easily digested for beginners. Still, it’s worth a read if only to acquaint yourself with the kinds of data found in a Form N-1A SEC filing.

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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 what worked and what didn’t, then ponder whether those trends will continue for the new year, or fizzle out.

Morningstar has a great article on what was hot in 2009, and why.

For starters, what was hot:

4 general categories proved to spear head the market out of panic mode:

• Emerging markets
• Small cap stocks
• Commodities
• Technology

The hottest single category for the year of all Morningstar categories and asset classes was Latin America stock funds – up 112% for the year. Diversified emerging markets rose 72%, while Pacific/Asia ex-Japan funds were up 69%.

Morningstar attributes these numbers to two factors:

1. A general sense of relief when investors realized the panic of Q4 2008 – Q1 2009 was overblown and the global financial system wasn’t headed over the abyss. This led investors to dive back into more “adventurous” investments that they had previously fled.
2. China’s economy showed signs of being more resilient than other economies, leading investors to return to embracing the trend of Chinese growth potential.

One could also argue, though the Morningstar article doesn’t, that the interest in commodities was due to an overall trend of uncertainty about the future caused in large part by un restrained government spending and historic federal deficits. Many people are hedging toward protecting for a possible currency crisis or at the very least, rapid rise in inflation.

Small cap and Tech stocks were hot because those kinds of stocks typically lead an economic recovery, so investors were looking to catch any stock market recovery in the early stages.

Check out the Morningstar article to see more of their reasoning behind the numbers.

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Morningstar has released it’s finalists for Funds Managers of the Year. Here are the highlights.

Fixed-Income Manager of the Year

• Phil Condon and Rebecca Flinn, DWS Strategic High Yield Tax Free (SHYTX)
• Farnham, Kane, Landmann, Nucci*, Metropolitan West High Yield Bond (MWHYX)
• Dan Fuss, Kathleen Gaffney, Matthew Eagan, Elaine Stokes*, Loomis Sayles Bond (LSBRX)
• Jeffrey Gundlach and Philip Barach*, TCW Total Return Bond (TGLMX)
• Mark Notkin, Fidelity Capital & Income (FAGIX)

Domestic-Stock Manager of the Year

• Bruce Berkowitz, Fairholme (FAIRX)
• Staley Cates and Mason Hawkins*, Longleaf Partners (LLPFX)
• Jeff Cardon, Wasatch Small Cap Growth (WAAEX)
• Dennis Delafield and Vincent Sellecchia, Delafield Fund (DEFIX)
• Bill Nygren*, Oakmark Select (OAKLX) and Oakmark (OAKMX)

International-Stock Manager of the Year

• Hakan Castegren and Northern Cross Team*, Harbor International (HAINX)
• David Herro*, Oakmark International (OAKIX) and Oakmark International Small Cap (OAKEX)
• Lee, Grace, Bepler, Denning, Lovelace, Kawaja*, American Funds EuroPacific Growth (AEPGX)
• Brent Lynn, Janus Overseas (JAOSX)
• Magiera, Tommasi, Coons, Andreach, Donlon, Gambill, Herrmann, Lester, Trotter, Manning & Napier World Opportunities (EXWAX)

* = Past winner.

Winners will be announced January 5th, 2010.

Read the full story and get a glimpse into why each manager is being considered here.

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Picking a mutual fund can be a daunting task, but here are 5 things to look for that I hope will help make the process a little easier. This is part of my weekly Mutual Fund Monday post feature. If you find this interesting or helpful, please read more.

1. Fees.

Over the entire time you own a mutual fund, fees can sap returns without you even knowing it. Fees are also the single easiest thing for an investor to control. You can’t always choose the hottest performing fund, but you can choose the one with the lowest fees. Also, many fund companies don’t tie fees to performance, so your fund manager gets the same financial incentive whether he beats his benchmark or falls short.

Look for low cost index funds, or fund families like Vanguard, Dodge & Cox and American funds. Also, look for families that tie compensation to performance like Vanguard, Fidelity, Bridgeway and Janus.

2. Size.

Fees matter, and so does size when it comes to mutual funds. When a fund gets too large, the manager cannot buy and sell many assets without affecting the price of those assets by his actions. This makes it very difficult to perform well. Think of it as the difference between steering an 18-wheeler and a motorcycle. You want a fund that’s small enough to be nimble and not have to fight against its own momentum.

Look for fund families that don’t let their funds grow too big. Funds that aren’t afraid to close the doors to new investors when the fund reaches a certain asset size. Families like Dodge & Cox, Longleaf Partners fit into this category. Also watch out for funds that announce they will be closing well in advance as this often signifies that the management is looking to make a last minute asset grab, and does not have the best interest of the shareholders in mind.

3. Age.

Pay attention not only to how old the fund is, but also how old other funds form the same family are. For example, avoid companies that seem to launch funds targeting “what’s hot” at a given time – think tech stocks in 1999, or emerging markets in 2006.

Look for fund companies with a long history of concentrating on fundamentals and not simply trying to capitalize on fads. Companies like Longleaf, FPA, and Dodge & Cox fit this metric.

4. Taxes.

Some managers simply don’t care about your tax bill, and that’s fine if you hold those funds in a tax sheltered account like a 401(k) or IRA. But if it’s in a taxable account, it’s an unnecessary drag on your return.

Look for funds with low turn over rate, and a small difference between before and after tax returns.

5. Benchmark.

Lastly, you should pay attention to the benchmark of a fund. You’ll want to know what the fund is using as its benchmark as well as how it performs in relation to that benchmark. But most importantly, you should look at the absolute return on the money invested. For example, if the fund lost only 35% when its benchmark lost 38%, it’s really not getting you much, is it?

Look for how the fund performs is good markets and bad markets. Be sure you can handle that worst case scenario because you can rest assured that it will happen to you at some point in your investing life. Try and find funds that capture most of the upside of the market, while limiting the downside as much as possible. For example, a large cap stock fund that returns 75% of the S&P 500 during a bull market, and loses as much as 50% compared to the S&P 500 during a bear market would get you a smoother ride and potentially larger return, provided you are holding the fund through both periods.

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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 and perspective applied to the facts and figures. For example, how far back do those “past performance” figures go? A fund may look great only because it has an explosive couple of years at the beginning of the period, and has been lack luster since.

Anyway, here’s a list of the ways but Chuck does a good job of explaining each in greater detail in the original article.

1. Past performance, Part I
2. Past performance, Part II
3. Past performance, Part III
4. Average Cost
5. Returns aren’t adjusted for taxes
6. Time-weighted performance measurement
7. Manager tenure

You will have noticed, no doubt, that the 1st three items on the list have a common theme. That’s because even though most investors know that “past performance is no guarantee of future results”, it’s still the single characteristic that carries the most weight with investors. Mutual fund companies know that, and they use it. A lot.

Here’s Chuck Jaffe, in his own words.

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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.

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