They were joined by representatives of the fund-tracking service Morningstar and the National Association of Investment Clubs. But much larger funds would have trouble serving their shareholders if they had to their moves. If everybody knew a multi-billion dollar fund was buying shares of a smallish growth company, the company s stock price would go through the roof and the fund would lose it s chance to get in cheap. Disclosure advocates say even the biggest funds should be able to disclose at least quarterly. Besides, says Nadig, fund investors should be able to see what the fund managers are doing to earn their keep.
Investors do pay, sometimes handsomely.
More often than not, they get only mediocre management in return. If there s any issue on which they have a right to demand change, this is it. If the mutual fund industry starts losing business in a big way, its high costs will probably be the reason. You ll get a few hundred hits, but thousands of other funds won t make the cut. Some funds consistently do beat the averages, and some are relatively cheap to own you can use the same screen to find some of them.