Страница 10
These sources (especially Wiesenberger) will also give you description of the funds, their investment policies and objectives. When you have selected several funds that look promising, call each fund (most have toll-free "800" numbers) to get its prospectus and recent financial reports. The prospectus for a mutual fund plays the same role as that described in "New Issues." It is the legal document describing the fund's history and policies and offering the fund's shares for sale. It may be dry reading, but the prospectus and financial reports together should give you a picture of what the fund is trying to do and how well it has succeeded over the latest 10 years.
In studying the records of the funds, and in requesting material, don't necessarily restrict yourself to a single "risk" group. The best investment managers sometimes operate in ways that aren't easily classified. What counts is the individual fund's record.
Obviously, you will want to narrow your choice to one or more funds that have performed well in relation to other funds in the same risk group, or to other funds in general. But don't rush to invest in the fund that happens to have performed best in the previous year; concentrate on the record over five or ten years. A fund that leads the pack for a single year may have taken substantial risks to do so. But a fund that has made its shareholders' money grow favorably over a ten-year period, covering both up and down periods in the stock market, can be considered well tested. It’s also worth looking at the year-to-year record to see how consistent management has been.
You will note that the range of fund performance over most periods is quite wide. Don’t be surprised. As we have stressed, managing investments is a difficult art. Fund managers are generally experienced professionals, but their records have nevertheless ranged from remarkably good to mediocre and, in a few cases, quite poor. Pick carefully.
|