Five sites to use for the best mutual fund research
Monday, March 16th, 2009Investing in mutual funds is a very popular thing to do for many investors. Mutual funds make a lot of sense for a large section of the population since they allow you to quickly pool your money with other people’s money and receive professional management and great diversification of your investments. Before you invest in a mutual fund, you should always do your own research as to which fund is worthy of your investment. I have compiled a list of five sites that are great to use for mutual fund research purposes.
Top Five Mutual Fund Research Sites On the Net
- Morningstar.com – For quite some time now Morningstar has been considered the gold standard in mutual fund research, and for good reason. Morningstar has dozens of analysts in all of the mutual fund fields that are specifically trained to follow every move that the mutual fund managers make and take note of every correct and incorrect step they take. Compare mutual funds in the click of a mouse at this site with no problems. Morningstar mutual fund ratings are also available for free to the public. The broadest offering of mutual fund research is here.
- Yahoo Finance – The Finance site at Yahoo has always been one of their stalwarts and the mutual fund page is definitely very useful. The mutual fund screener is dynamic, and completely free to use. Yahoo also has an easy way to track the top 10 holdings of each mutual fund in daily trading.
- WSJ.com – Wall Street Journal Online is often overlooked for mutual fund research, but I find the site to be very useful. The site is great at ranking which funds perform well vs. their peers over the short and long run, and the mutual fund charts here are above average.
- Kiplinger.com – Kiplinger Magazine is much more focused toward investments such as mutual funds versus individual stocks, and the website also has some great information. Kiplinger has a list of its favorite mutual funds, which it calls the Kiplinger 25, which have outperformed the market nicely in the long run.
- Fool.com – Motley Fool is a good website to use to understand the basics of mutual funds as well as the catches of some mutual funds. The Fool does a great job of showing investors what to avoid when looking for great mutual funds.