For a quick overview of the content of this site, try the Bullet Tour .

Bullet Tour

Looking for something specific about investing in mutual funds?

Then come back here and see what else we have to offer.

Mutual Funds are for Everyone

Investing in mutual funds provides a total solution for your investing needs, whether you have a few thousand dollars or a few million dollars to invest. With a well-designed portfolio, you can have your own pool of professionally managed investments, even with a small initial investment.

A Portfolio Built for You

A well-designed portfolio is one that is right for you. It will provide the maximum long-term rate of return that is consistent with the level of risk you are comfortable with. Here you’ll learn how to construct your portfolio by selecting high-performing funds that work well together and how to allocate your money to the funds you select for your portfolio. And it’s presented in plain English, so you can concentrate on absorbing that knowledge rather than interpreting it and be ready to begin investing in mutual funds sooner.

You can be a Successful Investor

To be successful at investing in mutual funds, you must do much better than the average investor. The fact that the average rate of return earned by mutual fund investors is way below the average rate of return of all mutual funds indicates that an awful lot of investors are very unsuccessful. You’ll learn on this site how to be a successful mutual fund investor .

Here’s what you’ll find on this site:

• The Bullet Tour — A twenty page bulletized summary of the content on this site.
• Introduction — The benefits of investing in mutual funds, what they are, how they work, how they’re bought and sold, and more.
• Types of Mutual Funds — A description of the various types of funds and an explanation of how they are classified.
• Investing Basics — This section presents, in plain English, the fundamental concepts that you need to know to be an informed investor and to get the most from the rest of the content on this site.
• Selection Criteria — It’s easy to evaluate and compare mutual funds by studying the key statistics that are readily available from many sources.
• Your Portfolio — Here you’ll learn the seven step process of assembling and maintaining your portfolio. Follow these seven steps to investing success.
• Glossary — Terminology relevant to the content on this site.
• Site Map — Use this as a table of contents or to navigate if you get lost.
• Site Search by Google — Find everything on this site relevant to a particular topic of interest.

If you are investing in mutual funds through a 401k or other employer-sponsored retirement plan, you’ll find the information on this site very helpful in making the decisions necessary to manage that account effectively. Also, 401k rollovers into IRAs present an excellent opportunity to select funds from a much larger pool than that which was available through your employer-sponsored plan. The information on this site will help you make your selection.

The information on this site is intended for use by investors who embrace a buy and hold strategy. I do not advocate chasing the current hot mutual funds, buying and selling funds in response to moves in the market, day trading or any other short-term strategy, or holding a portfolio of funds that is not well-diversified. There’s a lot of evidence that indicates these are all excellent ways to ensure that you either lose money or achieve very poor performance.

On the flip side, there’s even more evidence that indicates that buying and holding a diversified portfolio of mutual funds with good long-term performance records is a strategy that is nearly guaranteed to reward you with handsome returns in the long run.

Although this site is dedicated to investing in mutual funds, much of the content is relevant to investing in individual securities, too.

The structure of this site is such that the information is presented in a logical order, with each section building off the prior sections. You can jump around as you wish, but if you’re new to investing, you’ll get the most from this site by working through it from start to finish.