Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Research Mutual funds and ETF: where to find information

Due to the rich internet, information is available from various sources on what to buy. I use Morningstar, Kiplinger, MaxFunds , Google Finance, Yahoo finance, CNNmoney and Seeking Alpha.

Morningstar

Morningstar has excellent information on mutual funds. I check for the following data in the quote tab

  1. Number of stars: 5 or 4. Yield, 52 week price range, type of fund and expenses
  2. Asset allocation
  3. Risk measures
  4. Style Map
  5. 1 yr, 3 yr, 5 yr and 10 yr return
  6. Top Holdings

In the chart tab I check for rolling returns, mainly the maximum negative return. There is also a provision here to type in a symbol to compare performance.

For example in Vanguard Dividend Growth Inv fund VDIGX as of 1/22/2013 I got the following information:

  1. 5 stars, 2.21% yield, 1 year range $ 15.43 to $ 17.47, large blend fund, expenses 0.31%
  2. Asset allocation: US stock 86.78%, non US stock: 9.62%
  3. Risk vs category: Low, Return vs category: High
  4. Style Map: Large core
  5. 1 yr 12.11%, 3 yr 12.79%, 5 yr 7.02%, 10 yr 9.51% return.
  6. Top Holdings: occidental petroleum, Pepsico, J& J, Exxon, Target
  7. Rolling return –22.5% in 2008.

Kiplinger

Kiplinger has excellent information for investments. The following links will give a flavor of the type of information available from Kiplinger.

  1. Kiplinger's 25 Favorite No-Load Mutual Funds
  2. Kiplinger 25 Model Portfolios
  3. How to Retire Rich: 6 Smart Steps at Ages 50-66
  4. Our Investing Outlook for 2013

MaxFunds

MaxFunds has interesting information which gives another perspective on the funds.

For example they give a 97 rating for VDIGX and represent pictorially various aspects of the fund. They also have several portfolio holding recommendation like the following:

  1. Aggressive PORTFOLIO HOLDINGS
  2. Conservative PORTFOLIO HOLDINGS

Google Finance

Google Finance has instant quotes for stocks and mutual funds. In addition they nicely give a summary. For example they say VDIGX has a best 3 month return of 19.77% and worst 2 moth return of –22.58%.

Yahoo finance

Yahoo finance is another site for useful finance information. When you get a quote for a fund this site also has news headlines regarding the fund. This also would tell you what people who look at this fund also look at.

Another important information you can get from Yahoo finance is the ownership information. When I like a stock, I look for the funds which own it from this. For example when you look at Exxon Mobile the following link 

Exxon Mobile Major Holders

gives you Vanguard Wellington fund as one of the holders.

CNNmoney

CNNmoney has finance information. 

Money 70: Best mutual funds and ETFs has very useful list of good mutual funds.

Seeking Alpha

 Seeking Alpha has some interesting articles on various financial stocks, ETFs and mutual funds.

For example the Dividends & Income tab has some excellent articles on various income producing ideas!

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