If you like Money magazine, you ll like this site. Its fund finder lets you set the parameters of the fund you re looking for. They include objective, performance, expenses, and risk. For example, under the objective parameter, you have the choice of choosing stock funds, bond funds, or both. Those aren t objectives, but types of funds.
True objectives are low risk, high income, liquidity, and the like.
This seems pointless, because I can t imagine anyone selecting below average or lowest 10-year average funds. Annual expense ratios aren t even mentioned, despite the fact that some no-load funds are the most expensive in the industry. The expenses parameter gives you nothing more specific than a choice between load and no-load. Again, these features don t seem to provide much help in finding mutual funds that are right for you. What was strange, though, is that the fund was also the site s top selection for funds with below-average risk levels even though the fund s beta is 1.15 for the past three years.