3 Mutual Fund Misfires To Avoid In Your Retirement Portfolio - November 22, 2019

If your financial advisor made you buy any of these "Mutual Fund Misfires of the Market" with high expenses and low returns, you need to reassess your advisor.

The easiest way to judge a mutual fund's quality over time is by analyzing its performance and fees. Our Zacks Rank of over 19,000 mutual funds has identified some of the worst of the worst mutual funds you should avoid, the funds with the highest fees and poorest long-term performance.

First, let's break down some of the funds currently part of our "Mutual Fund Misfires of the Market." If you happen to have put your money into any of these misfires, we'll help assess some of our best Zacks Ranked mutual funds.

3 Mutual Fund Misfires

Now, let's take a look at three market misfires.

Third Avenue Value Fund Investor (TVFVX): Expense ratio: 1.4%. Management fee: 0.9%. After expenses, the 5 year return is -3.78%, meaning your fees are far higher than the fund's returns.

AB Allocation Market Real Return Advisor (AMTYX): 1.01% expense ratio, 0.75% management fee. AMTYX is classified as an Allocation Balanced fund, which seeks to invest in a balance of asset types, like stocks, bonds, and cash, and including precious metals or commodities is not unusual. This fund has an annual returns of -2.43% over the last five years. Another fund guilty of having investors pay more in fees than returns.

Virtus Equity Trend C (VAPCX) - 2.3% expense ratio, 1% management fee. This fund has yielded yearly returns of 1% in the course of the last five years. Too bad!

3 Top Ranked Mutual Funds

Since you've seen the most noticeably lowest Zacks Ranked mutual funds, how about we take a look at some of the top ranked mutual funds with the least fees.

Fidelity Trend Fund (FTRNX) is a winner, with an expense ratio of just 0.65% and a five-year annualized return track record of 12.15%.

Victory Sycamore Established Value I (VEVIX) is a stand out fund. VEVIX is categorized as an All Cap Value fund, and like the name suggests, invests across the cap spectrum in small-cap, mid-cap, and large-cap companies. With five-year annualized performance of 10.85% and expense ratio of 0.61%, this diversified fund is an attractive buy with a strong history of performance.

MFS Mass Investors Growth Stock R2 (MIRGX): Expense ratio: 0.98%. Management fee: 0.33%. MIRGX is a part of the Large Cap Growth mutual fund category, which invest in many large U.S. companies that are expected to grow much faster compared to other large-cap stocks. MIRGX has produced a 13.32% over the last five years.

Bottom Line

These examples underscore the huge range in quality of mutual funds - from the really bad to the astonishingly good. There is no reason for your advisor to keep your money in any fund that charges more than you get in return (unless they're getting something out of it, like a high commission).

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