- UID
- 714317
- 在线时间
- 小时
- 注册时间
- 2012-1-27
- 最后登录
- 1970-1-1
- 主题
- 帖子
- 性别
- 保密
|
大家好，周五经管来了，今天的主题是Mutual Fund. yingjie版主曾经发过Mutual Fund的相关文章，链接如下：
http://forum.chasedream.com/thread-857131-1-1.html （速度第五篇）我在yingjie版主的文章的基础上加深了介绍，希望大家喜欢。
另外，今天是心动最后一次发帖，以后我的工作由工作组新成员：onlyMIT接手。
感谢大家半年来的支持，这半年的发帖工作，我学到了很多，也交到了很多好朋友，真的很舍不得大家。
愿每一位参加阅读小分队的同学都能考出理想的成绩，都能进入自己的Dream school。
------By 风随心动01
Warm up: Mutual Funds: Introduction
As you probably know, mutual funds have become extremely popular over the last 20 years. What was once just another obscure financial instrument is now a part of our daily lives. More than 80 million people, or one half of the households in America, invest in mutual funds. That means that, in the United States alone, trillions of dollars are invested in mutual funds.
In fact, to many people, investing means buying mutual funds. After all, it's common knowledge that investing in mutual funds is (or at least should be) better than simply letting your cash waste away in a savings account, but, for most people, that's where the understanding of funds ends. It doesn't help that mutual fund salespeople speak a strange language that is interspersed with jargon that many investors don't understand.
Originally, mutual funds were heralded as a way for the little guy to get a piece of the market. Instead of spending all your free time buried in the financial pages of the Wall Street Journal, all you had to do was buy a mutual fund and you'd be set on your way to financial freedom. As you might have guessed, it's not that easy. Mutual funds are an excellent idea in theory, but, in reality, they haven't always delivered. Not all mutual funds are created equal, and investing in mutuals isn't as easy as throwing your money at the first salesperson who solicits your business. (Learn about the pros and cons in Mutual Funds Are Awesome - Except When They're Not.)
In this tutorial, we'll explain the basics of mutual funds and hopefully clear up some of the myths around them. You can then decide whether or not they are right for you.
(299)
PART I: SPEED
Article 1
Mutual Funds: What Are They?
[Time 1]
The Definition
A mutual fund is nothing more than a collection of stocks and/or bonds. You can think of a mutual fund as a company that brings together a group of people and invests their money in stocks, bonds, and other securities. Each investor owns shares, which represent a portion of the holdings of the fund.
You can make money from a mutual fund in three ways:
1) Income is earned from dividends on stocks and interest on bonds. A fund pays out nearly all of the income it receives over the year to fund owners in the form of a distribution.
2) If the fund sells securities that have increased in price, the fund has a capital gain. Most funds also pass on these gains to investors in a distribution.
3) If fund holdings increase in price but are not sold by the fund manager, the fund's shares increase in price. You can then sell your mutual fund shares for a profit.
Funds will also usually give you a choice either to receive a check for distributions or to reinvest the earnings and get more shares.
(187)
[Time 2]
Advantages of Mutual Funds
• Professional Management - The primary advantage of funds is the professional management of your money. Investors purchase funds because they do not have the time or the expertise to manage their own portfolios. A mutual fund is a relatively inexpensive way for a small investor to get a full-time manager to make and monitor investments. (For more reading see Active Management: Is It Working For You?)
• Diversification - By owning shares in a mutual fund instead of owning individual stocks or bonds, your risk is spread out. The idea behind diversification is to invest in a large number of assets so that a loss in any particular investment is minimized by gains in others. In other words, the more stocks and bonds you own, the less any one of them can hurt you (think about Enron). Large mutual funds typically own hundreds of different stocks in many different industries. It wouldn't be possible for an investor to build this kind of a portfolio with a small amount of money.
• Economies of Scale - Because a mutual fund buys and sells large amounts of securities at a time, its transaction costs are lower than what an individual would pay for securities transactions.
• Liquidity - Just like an individual stock, a mutual fund allows you to request that your shares be converted into cash at any time.
• Simplicity - Buying a mutual fund is easy! Pretty well any bank has its own line of mutual funds, and the minimum investment is small. Most companies also have automatic purchase plans whereby as little as $100 can be invested on a monthly basis.
(273)
[Time 3]
Disadvantages of Mutual Funds
• Professional Management - Many investors debate whether or not the professionals are any better than you or I at picking stocks. Management is by no means infallible, and, even if the fund loses money, the manager still gets paid.
• Costs - Creating, distributing, and running a mutual fund is an expensive proposition. Everything from the manager's salary to the investors' statements cost money. Those expenses are passed on to the investors. Since fees vary widely from fund to fund, failing to pay attention to the fees can have negative long-term consequences. Remember, every dollar spend on fees is a dollar that has no opportunity to grow over time. (Learn how to escape these costs in Stop Paying High Mutual Fund Fees.)
• Dilution - It's possible to have too much diversification. Because funds have small holdings in so many different companies, high returns from a few investments often don't make much difference on the overall return. Dilution is also the result of a successful fund getting too big. When money pours into funds that have had strong success, the manager often has trouble finding a good investment for all the new money.
• Taxes - When a fund manager sells a security, a capital-gains tax is triggered. Investors who are concerned about the impact of taxes need to keep those concerns in mind when investing in mutual funds. Taxes can be mitigated by investing in tax-sensitive funds or by holding non-tax sensitive mutual fund in a tax-deferred account, such as a 401(k) or IRA. (Learn about one type of tax-deferred fund in Money Market Mutual Funds: A Better Savings Account.)
(268)
SOURCE:investopedia
http://www.investopedia.com/university/mutualfunds/mutualfunds.asp
Article 2
What to expect from your bond mutual fund
NEW YORK (AP) -- Investing in bond mutual funds is easy. At least, that's the way it was for decades
[Time 4]
Investors could count on steady interest payments. Their funds also benefited from rising bond prices, because interest rates made a three-decade-long march downward since 1981. When yields fell, bond prices rose: Each step lower made the bonds held by mutual funds more attractive because they offered higher rates than newly issued bonds.
But the tide has shifted. Many analysts say we have hit a bottom for interest rates, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury note has climbed to 2.5 percent from 1.6 percent at the start of May
The rise in rates has led to losses for many bond mutual funds, and it's something that investors need to get used to, says Rick Rieder. He is chief investment officer of fundamental fixed income portfolios at BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager. He oversees $650 billion in assets, including BlackRock's Strategic Income Opportunities mutual fund (BASIX), which can own everything from long-term Treasurys to short-term corporate bonds to debt from emerging markets.
Q: What's a fair return that investors can expect from their primary bond mutual funds? Is not losing money too much to ask?
A: For the last 25 or 30 years, people have counted on bonds to provide their interest payments, plus a little bit of price appreciation. People have been investing with that expectation, and if you were just patient, your bond portfolio would work for you. The world has changed. The last couple of months were illustrative of how much the world has changed. It didn't take a big move in interest rates to send long-dated Treasurys down 12 percent over a two-month period.
It became evident, quickly, that returns in bond funds are going to be more volatile, even high-quality bonds. Over the coming couple of years, people should count on hopefully the coupon return, which in today's environment is a little over 2 percent, with a potential for it being in a moderately rising rate environment, which could mean zero or slightly negative returns.
(330)
[Time 5]
Q: What's the worst-case scenario for bond funds? Could it be as bad as 2008 was for stock mutual funds, when the financial crisis meant the Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 37 percent?
A: I don't think you're going to see a crisis in bonds. Interest rates are not going to move up dramatically: We are in a low-inflation environment, global economic growth is slow, monetary policy is still very easy. I think what you'll see is an environment of gradually increasing rates, but that will lead to negative returns for a core, passive bond fund. Think of this year, where the average bond fund has had a 4 percent loss. That's a pretty big move.
Q: Does that mean that buying and holding a bond mutual fund is a bad idea now?
A: I think people are diversifying now to bond funds that can be flexible and tactical, which try to keep their sensitivity to interest rates down. They're not relying so much on government bonds. They're also investing in European bonds, at times, when valuations make sense. I think we live in a world where the way to make money in fixed income is to be flexible.
Q: Long-term bond mutual funds get hurt the most by rises in interest rates, because their holdings are locked into the lower rates for a longer period. Does it make sense for anyone to own a long-term bond fund today?
A: People should still own long-dated bonds, and core bond funds still make sense within a diversified portfolio. People haven't diversified as much over the prior few years as they should have, because they haven't had to. Not only have rates been trending down with slower growth, but you've had the Federal Reserve continue to push rates lower.
I don't say that you should sell all of your long-term bonds, but people should diversify to have less interest-rate sensitivity in their portfolio.
(322)
[The rest]
Q: How much more will the yield on the 10-year Treasury rise if the Federal Reserve slows its bond-buying stimulus program later this year, as many economists expect?
A: We think fair value on the 10-year is about 3 percent. So at today's levels, you've already eliminated two thirds of the distortion created by quantitative easing. As the Fed starts reducing, as you get into the beginning of next year, it could be in the low 3s.
For a more significant move, we would have to see a significant increase in inflation and the assumption that unemployment was improving dramatically, so that the Fed would have to move the federal funds rate. I don't think either of those is at our doorstep.
Q: Are there any widespread mistakes you see individual investors making?
A: People are very slow to recognize how different the world is going to be going forward. I think people underestimate that fixed income could be more volatile than the equity market, and historically we have never seen anything like that. I am surprised that people are still very comfortable with their traditional long-dated bonds.
(188)
SOURCE:Finance yahoo
http://news.yahoo.com/expect-bond-mutual-fund-192053535.html;_ylt=A2KJ2UZo0vtRR3EAV0fQtDMD
PART II: OBSTACLE
Article 4
When a mutual fund says it doesn't want your money
Dozens of funds have closed their doors to new investors in 2013, and that can be a good thing
By Stan Choe, AP Business Writer | Associated Press
That's what a growing number of mutual fund managers are telling investors who want to hand over their money, and it's occurring just as many investors are getting comfortable with stocks again.
The market is at a record high, and more than 300 mutual funds have closed their doors to anyone who wants to put money in the fund for the first time. The funds run a wide range, specializing in everything from short-term U.S. bonds to dividend-paying Asian stocks. Of the 315 funds closed to new investors, 56 made the move during the first seven months of 2013, according to data from Morningstar. That compares with 49 for all of 2012 and 53 for all of 2011.
It's actually an encouraging trend, at least for those already in the funds, says Todd Rosenbluth, director of ETF and mutual fund research at S&P Capital IQ. "Funds close to new investors for good reasons," he says. "They want to make sure they protect existing shareholders."
Mutual fund companies could earn bigger profits by keeping their doors open, because it means more assets on which managers can collect fees. But having too much money can make managing the fund more difficult. Stock pickers may run out of ideas they feel strongly about. Managers who specialize in small-cap stocks could also see their ownership stakes get too large in individual companies if they continue pumping money into their favorites. That could make selling them later more difficult.
"It's nice to hear that the industry that has been criticized for being greedy is doing things that are taking the interest of shareholders to heart," says Morty Schaja, chief executive officer of RiverPark Funds. His company's RiverPark Short Term High Yield fund (RPHYX) closed to new investors in June.
"It's like we're in the business of selling cars, and all of a sudden, we don't want to sell any more cars because there's too much traffic," Schaja says.
Much of the RiverPark Short Term High Yield fund is invested in a relatively small section of the market: bonds issued by companies with weak credit ratings that are scheduled to be repaid over the next month. When the fund launched in 2010, Schaja says the team thought it could comfortably handle $700 million to $1 billion. "After that, it's harder to invest the money."
The fund now has about $789 million, according to Morningstar, as demand ballooned for bonds with higher yields that are less sensitive to moves in interest rates.
Investors have been getting more comfortable with stock mutual funds recently as well. They put more money into stock funds than they took out for five straight months from January through May, according to the Investment Company Institute, which represents the fund industry. It's the first time that has happened in more than two years, though investors pulled a modest amount out in June.
The increased flow of dollars and big gains for stocks this year have pushed assets for many stock mutual funds higher. Indexes that measure big, medium and small-sized stocks all set record highs in July.
The BBH Core Select (BBTEX) fund closed to new investors in November, before that run. It was for a simple reason, says Jeff Schoenfeld, a partner at Brown Brothers Harriman: Its managers are choosy and want to remain that way.
The fund has several criteria that companies must pass before the fund will invest, and it typically can identify only about 25 to 30 at a time. Companies must sell an essential product or service, have loyal customers and have a stock price that's at least 25 percent below where the managers think it should be, for example. The fund owns big companies, such as Berkshire Hathaway, Comcast and Google.
"If you do the math, it leads you to the conclusion that after you reach about $20 billion, you would either own too much of any one company or you'd have to begin diversifying and own a larger number of companies," Schoenfeld says.
To be sure, the decision to close the fund and protect existing shareholders wasn't entirely selfless. "The investment team who work here are invested themselves," Schoenfeld says.
Asked if the fund ideally would remain closed to new investors forever, Schoenfeld says he doesn't know.
But mutual funds in the past have gone on to re-open, including Fidelity's Contrafund (FCNTX), one of the most popular funds at $93.7 billion in assets. It welcomed back new accounts in December 2008 after having previously been closed since April 2006.
The fund's manager, Will Danoff, said at the time that dollars from new investors could help him to scoop up stocks that had been knocked down by the financial crisis.
(783)
Source:boston
http://www.boston.com/business/personal-finance/2013/08/01/when-mutual-fund-says-doesn-want-your-money/JptL5SyBba1Hx0Hx8Vok6K/story.html
|
|
[复制链接]
京公网安备11010202008513号 京ICP证101109号 京ICP备12012021号
发表于 2013-8-3 00:30:26
收藏
收藏
