With an eye out for the best equity mutual funds on the market, it makes sense that we might want to look at past performance as a way to not only measure up our 2011 Watch List, but to see whether what we say here at the Site really holds any value for our readers. [...]
Considering the select group of investment funds that we cover at the Mutual Fund Site, one might think that arriving at a list of the Ten Best Equity Mutual Funds to watch in 2011 would be a simple task. After all, the 50 different mutual funds that we cover and continue to monitor are, by [...]
The Commerce Department released its latest new home sales data today, showing that sales have increased by 17.5% in December of 2010. The increase translates to 329,000 units annually, an important leading indicator for the economy. According to the report at Bloomberg, new home builders have reduced the new-home inventory levels to 6.9 months’ worth [...]
The Standard and Poor’s/Case-Shiller housing price report released Tuesday shows that housing prices continued their downward trend in November from October. As an average of the 20 cities surveyed by S&P/Case-Shiller Index, prices were shown to have dropped by an additional 1% with 19 of the 20 cities showing declines. The only city showing a [...]
Information posted on the FDIC website brings the total of bank failures for 2010 to seven. On Friday, January 21, 2010, the FDIC shuttered four additional financial institutions including the Bank of Asheville in Asheville, NC, United Western Bank in Denver, CO, CommunitySouth Bank and Trust in Easley, SC, and Enterprise Banking Company in McDonough, [...]
Looking for a strong mutual fund? There is one period that you will take a particular interest in: The three years rolling returns of that mutual fund. When it comes to equity funds, that period is often negative and virtually always unimpressive, and we can thank the 2008 market for that. In some cases, like [...]
Small cap mutual funds have had a great run so far in 2010, representing the best performing group of funds among non-specific funds (e.g. real estate, discretionary, etc.). Good returns attract attention, so it makes sense that investors should be a little more curious about small cap funds. But what distinguishes a good fund from [...]
Small cap funds have been among this year’s top performing mutual funds. They have attracted some interest from equity fund investors who have given up on large cap growth funds. But so have international funds. So the question becomes, what if you put small cap and international together? If you have ever wondered this (most [...]
Dividend funds. You hear and read about them every time you visit a site or watch CNBC or any other “popular” investment media. But dividend funds, while a great investment idea about, oh, three months or so ago make more sense than your typical bond funds, they are not for everyone. A couple of weeks [...]
The lagging small cap category this year has been the small cap growth category. At the Mutual Fund Site, we decided to take a quick peek at a fund that fell into this category and like the top performers we examined last month, the Marshall Small-Cap Growth Fund (MASCX) is an above-average fund. Rated at [...]
The small cap growth category is an interesting one. Since small cap mutual funds are an interesting breed to begin with, investing in small cap growth funds implies less risk in a category that is abundant with risk anyway. The Wells Fargo Advantage Small Cap Growth fund illustrates just how it can be that a [...]
With the Small Cap Value fund category holding a good second spot in terms of Year to Date mutual fund returns, it would make great sense for people to be taking a keen interest in this category. The top-rated funds are found easily enough, but what about those small cap mutual funds that are not [...]
It is not easy to find mutual funds that have earned double-digit returns on a year-to-date basis. But it seems that this small cap fund has done just that, earning 12.5% since January 2, 2010 even though its investment strategy might seems a little, well, unique compared to others in its category. But before we [...]
The Fidelity Small Cap Discovery Fund (FSCRX) is an aggressive small cap mutual fund made up of mostly small cap securities (70.81%) with some assets invested in micro cap (15.75%) and even less in medium cap. As far as mutual funds go, Fidelity has been a steady performer even though their risk is marginally above [...]
The Franklin MicroCap Value Fund (FRMCX) is one of those top performing funds that has stuck to its strategy over the past ten-plus years and, as a result, has been able to provide investors with great returns. As a Small Cap Fund, this Franklin fund is a steady performer, something that not all mutual funds [...]
