Summarize the following:
It is important to take stock of yourself and determine your "investor profile." Your investor profile defines what you are like as an investor. What are your investment needs? How much risk can you tolerate? How long do you plan to keep your investment? How much is available for you to invest? The answers to these questions make up your investor profile. This is the first step in narrowing the field of mutual funds to select the ones best for you. Time is among the most important factors to consider when investing. How long will you keep this investment? When will you need to use the money? If you can hold your investment(s) for a long time, you can afford to take more risk and rebound from any temporary losses. On the other hand if you have a short time horizon, you will likely want to be more conservative. This is because you won't have as much time to recover from inevitable losses along the way. In such a case you will value safety above all else. Thus, your time horizon is extremely important in choosing funds. Another important part of this process is determining your risk tolerance. This is a measure of how much risk you are willing to take with your money. If you are going to be anxious when your fund goes up 2% one day and down 5% the next, you should avoid funds with high volatility. This is recommended for beginning investors (until they get a feel for the investment process). Risk tolerance often reflects an investor's experience and sophistication. Veteran investors know that stock markets historically trend upward with short-term dips along the way. Some of those dips can be rather hair-raising, but long-term trends remain consistently positive. Mutual funds can be categorized in several ways. With thousands of funds worldwide, it's important to understand four major considerations: Investment category. This relates to the investment style or objectives of the fund's manager. There are several different styles to choose. "Aggressive growth" funds make high-risk, high-return investments without dividend payments in mind. Returns within these funds come from increases in stock value. "Growth" funds are similar but less volatile. "Income" funds look for investments with moderate price-growth potential but with a history of significant dividend payments. "Value" funds seek to invest in stocks that appear to be trading at prices that undervalue their company's true worth. There are other style categories, too, that blend any of the above styles or focus on other asset classes such as bonds or money-market instruments. Size. This consideration relates to the size of the companies that the fund invests in. Generally speaking, risk decreases as size increases. "Large-cap" funds invest in big companies, typically valued at $10 billion or more in market capitalization. "Mid-cap" funds invest in medium-sized companies, generally valued between $2 billion and $10 billion. "Small-cap" funds invest in smaller companies which may be more likely to fail but also represent the potential for rapid growth. Geographic focus. This relates to the part of the world in which a mutual fund invests. Some funds focus exclusively on US markets, while others focus on other areas of the globe. Economy sector. This relates to what types of enterprises the fund focuses its investments in. A fund might invest primarily in companies involved in manufacturing, for example, or in agriculture or mineral extraction. In addition to these four considerations, it is also important to know if a mutual fund is open- or closed-ended. Most mutual funds are open-ended, meaning there is no limit to how many people can invest in them, and the fund is not traded on an exchange. Closed-ended funds have a limited number of shares available and are traded on an exchange. This makes them more volatile. Many people who invest in mutual funds also consider exchange-traded funds. ETFs are passively managed portfolios of securities selected to mimic or track an index such as the S&P 500. There are two general differences between ETFs and mutual funds: ETFs are bought and sold on a stock exchange in the same way stocks are. This makes them more volatile but also easily traded. As with stocks, the value of an ETF fluctuates throughout the day because it is traded on an exchange. ETFs will not rise and fall with the general market but with whatever underlying index it has been designed to track. ETFs are similar to mutual funds in that they offer much more diversification than do individual stocks or bonds. Passive ETFs are index funds designed to track specific benchmarks, such as the SPDR (the S&P 500 index). They are not closely overseen by a fund manager and will rise and fall with the market as a whole, because their underlying investments rarely change. This means ETF management fees tend to be low, but the returns can be low, too. Some ETFs are actively managed, making them more like the typical mutual fund. Most mutual funds are actively managed, whereas most ETFs are passively managed (the index funds mentioned above). This means that the holdings of a mutual fund are selected by a fund manager who seeks to make the fund as profitable as possible. The manager actively monitors the market and revises the fund's list of assets accordingly. Performance is a measure of how profitable a fund is or has been. When considering a mutual fund it is important to understand its past performance and compare it to that of other funds. Historical performance is a measure of how a fund has performed in the past. Performance is measured over a period of months or years. Longer performance periods are usually more meaningful than shorter ones. When evaluating funds, focus on the long-term historical performance. Specifically look at a fund's net returns over the last three, five, and ten years. This may seem like a long time, but remember that mutual funds are long-term investments. Looking back over a longer period can reveal the performance of a fund in both rising and falling markets. It is important to remember that past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Even so, it is a useful indicator and especially useful as a valid point of comparison among funds. Relative performance compares a fund's ability to create wealth to that of other funds or to a benchmark. A benchmark is a common point of reference for comparison. It could be a stock index like the well known S&P 500. It could also be another fund or an index created for a specific asset class, fund objective, geographical region or market sector. An example would be the MSCI World Stock Index. Comparing it to one of these benchmarks over a long time period is an effective way to assess a mutual fund's success. It helps to know relative performance as well as historical performance. For example, is 10% a good return or not? The answer depends on factors such as risk, volatility, and length of time being considered. You get much more insight into the value of a fund's return if you can compare it to other similar funds or to a benchmark. Risk describes how likely a fund is to lose money during a given period of time. Prices of stocks, bonds and other assets continually go up and down. How much and how often they go up and down defines the amount of risk being taken. Your goal as a mutual fund investor should be to get the highest return with the lowest accompanying risk. Investing is all about the risk-return relationship. More risk typically carries with it the potential for more reward and more loss. Less risk is usually accompanied by less reward but also less loss. Risk is typically measured in terms of volatility or "historical volatility." Volatility is the size of the price change of a security within a specific period of time. The direction of the price change is less significant than the amount. More volatility means more risk. Returns describe how much a fund gains or loses over a period of time expressed as a percentage of the full amount invested. The relationship between risks and returns is often expressed using one of various ratios. It is important to view these ratios, because they tell you how likely you are to get rewarded for taking a particular risk. The Sharpe ratio is the industry-standard measure of risk-adjusted return. It is the average return earned in excess of the "risk-free" rate per unit of volatility. A Sharpe ratio above 1 means that historically the fund has earned more than enough to offset and compensate for the risk assumed. A value below 1 means that the risk assumed is insufficiently compensated. In other words, there have been more losses than gains. The further you get from 1, the more likely you are to receive a substantial reward or punishment. "Alpha" compares a mutual fund's performance to that of a benchmark index while taking into account volatility. The fund's returns, relative to a benchmark index, is a fund's alpha. A positive alpha score of 1.0 would mean the fund outperformed the benchmark by 1%. A negative 1.0 alpha score would mean the fund under-performed by 1%. "Beta" describes how closely the fund's returns track the benchmark's returns. Risk does influence beta, but beta does not measure volatility. Instead it measures relative price movements and is known as a measure of correlation. There are costs associated with investing in mutual funds. Some are direct fees known as "loads," which are sales or redemption fees. Others are more indirect, such as overhead expenses, which are paid in the form of an "expense ratio." A load is a commission paid to the mutual fund company for the privilege of investing in their fund. They are a charge for helping you choose a good fund. Loads will diminish the effect that compounding of returns will have for you and thus reduce your overall returns. There are many "no-load" funds available, and there is little evidence to suggest that load funds perform any better than no-load funds do. Another fee you may want to avoid is the "12b-1" fee. This is a "distribution" and advertising fee used to pay brokers for helping the fund find investors. Many but not all funds charge a 12b-1 fee. All U.S.-based funds are required to disclose such fees in their prospectuses. Some expenses are unavoidable. There are management, trading, and overhead expenses, among other legitimate costs of doing business, that are typically passed along to investors in the form of the fund's expense ratio. Compare the expense ratios of various funds. A lower expense ratio is preferable. A ratio above 1% of assets under management (AUM) could be considered excessive. Several funds charge much less than that. The SEC states that there is no evidence that more expensive mutual funds perform any better than less expensive ones. Passive ETFs are frequently the least expensive funds. This is because they avoid expenses associated with research, analysis, and trading. Typically, these index funds have expense ratios of less than 0.25% of AUM. They are not known for high returns, but they do offer diversified portfolios.
Do a self-evaluation. Understand the differences among funds. Understand the difference between mutual funds and ETFs. Learn how to assess a fund's performance. Understand the risks and rewards. Interpret the risk/return relationship. Consider the costs.