Medium to High risk Mutual Funds?  What happens when they default?
414291
Mutual funds do not "default," it is not a term applied to mutual funds.  However, the mutual fund can invest in something, like a bond, where the issuer defaults.  Then you the investor lose money.
388299
Mutual funds are a group of investors, that usually don't have enough money at one time, pooling there money together to maximize their buying power and  with more money they buy many different stocks in many different companies so that they limit their risk of loss by not investing in one company( or putting your eggs in one basket) Do to the fact that they pool their money the mutual fund can then afford a professional fund manager to pick which stocks, bonds, or money markets to invest in.  Also there are many types of funds, some balanced meaning they invest in all three, stocks, bonds, and money markets, simultaneously and some invest all in stocks, or bonds, or money markets individually. Anyway that is another big discussion. I hope that this helps you out.\n\nRemember mutual funds will never have the big returns of individual stocks but there wont be the losses either.\n\nAverage gains of 8% to 12% over the life of the fund should not be too hard to get.
97677
You can day trade ETFs (exchange traded funds).\n\nMany (maybe most, I'm not sure) mutual funds impose a fee if you sell funds you have held for less than 30 or 60 days. This is as a result of the market-timing 'scandals' of a few years ago.
349626
However much money you want to put into it.  A lot of times it depends on which company (Edward Jones, Vanguard, Fidelity, etc. etc.) you want to start it with and if you already have accounts w/these companies or not.  If you get a mutual fund through a company and you have a full-service one, then you will have to pay fees/commissions but its not much (like 5%) and its TOTALLY worth it b/c then you don't have to worry about, manage it, or diversify it.  And once you have the mutual fund, it will always grow unless there is a recession in the economy or a big stock market decrease.
593016
As I understand, it is shifting asset allocations.\nMostly seems to be fee based turnover of funds from here to there!
944945
manager tenures are important for the more successful ones like Bill Nygren at Oakmark get favorable reviwes in places liek morningstar (and deservingly so) performance look as far back as you can 5-10 year range and go from there. Cap size DOES reduce risk for the large cap sector is well established companies and can withstand periodicall losses in teh market. Small caps are generally younger companies and they will be hurt if the market suddenly tanks. Large cap doesn't have a better track record per say buy large cap would be something like Boeing and a small cap would be NTE big differences between the two. The more risk the more potetional for reward could happen. Barons does a review on mutual fund managers and they are very worthy a look (with Bill I even invested in his funds before moving to ETF's)
1096591
I wouldn't panic yet. The market will always have its peaks and valleys. I would think most investors are probably still up year-to-date. I did re-adjust my portfolio and sold some individual stocks and bought into some diversified etf's and closed end funds. You know, to lessen the volatility.
199313
Talk to your bank about investing in a mutual fund. Ask for high growth and moderate risk. The reason I suggest this is because it is obvious you know little or nothing of investing, this is what I would buy. You wont see the kind of returns on any other unmanaged investment.\n\nBest Wishes
437445
That's Simple.\n\nIf you have 10+years, there are several balanced mutual/index funds, that have returned more than 10% on average.\n\nUse a fund stock screener - you can see them - pay attention to upfront and ongoing expenses.\n\nIs it the best way? - It's the only one I know that is available to the average guy.\n\nGood Luck!
998333
If you are from India, check out the  link below. \n\nBasically, they are a pooling of investors that would rather have someone else do their investing for them.  They give their money to a mutual fund manager and the manager does the investing. For a fee, of course.  There are all types of mutual funds. Ones that invest in growth stocks, ones that invest in bonds, ones that invest in undervalued stocks, ones that invest in foreign stocks, and relatively new, ones that invest in a market average.  The last came about because mutual funds in general--70%--could not get a better return than the market in general. \n\nThat does not mean that all mutual funds are bad. But is does mean that you have to do your home work before buying one.  You can get your money back by just giving them a phone call or sending a request over the internet. Some mutual funds are sold by stock brokers and the funds are held by the broker and you sell them by calling the broker.  Every year at year end the mutual fund distributes the money that they realized on their investments.  That has pluses and minuses.  The plus is that you get the money. The minus is that you have to pay taxes on it. The index funds do not distribute so much because they do not sell their investments so often. So they are an advantage in that respect.
101543
It depends on what you mean by loss. You may be considering holding the bill for a period shorter than maturity. In that case, you may suffer losses due to an increase of yield rates. As another answerer pointed out, T-bills have short maturities / durations and this will mitigate your exposure to yield increase.\nYou might consider the loss of opportuniy risk (although that´s kind of pushing it).\nBut I guess your real concern is with credit (or default) risks. The default risk of any currency issuing government on securities denominated on its own currency are not considered realistic. Lets say that at the time of maturity, the US Treasury did not have sufficient fund to repay and could not raise it by emitting new debt (e.g. new T-bills), it can simply issue more currency.\nEach country has different rules as to who decides when to issue currency, but that is something that would certainly be done to avoid a default. In this case, the sudden surplus of money would cause inflationary pressure, causing the dollar amount redeamed to be worth less than expected (it will still be the same amount of dollars though). But, unless your a foreing investor or are considering investing in non dollar denominated securities (e.g. a bond issued by the UK to be payed in BP), the loss of worth is irrelevant, as it affects all financial instruments as well as cash.\nIn all fairness though, some governments (e.g. Brazil) have chosen to stall payments of debts in their own currency to avoid more currency issuance as an attempt to bring down inflations at very high levels (plus of 40% per month). But having T-bills such short maturities, it would seem very unlikely such scenario would present itself during that period.
916421
Here is the page to go to to find mid-cap funds on Yahoo.  Scroll down the category page until you find mid-cap.  They have a selection for mid-cap value, mid-cap growth, and mid-cap blend.  To select the ones with the best record,  select morningstar 4 star or better.  To select the ones that are no load, select no load under front load.  \n\nhttp://screen.yahoo.com/funds.html\n\nYou will find several pages of them.  Study several of them to learn more about picking mutual funds.  It will come in very handy during your life.
418685
The shares of closed-end mutual funds trade on one of the stock exchanges. These funds have a fixed number of shares outstanding. The price they trade at from day to day is usually different than what the shares are worth. This is referred to as a "discount" or a "premium".\n\nOpen end mutual funds are bought and sold directly through the mutual fund company, or a broker who trades in mutual funds. The fund issues new shares if there are more buyers than sellers, and vice versa. The fund shares are bought or sold at exactly what they are worth at the time. Share values are calculated at the end of each business day.\n\nThe above applies to real estate funds, as well as to other types of funds.
164845
I own and recommend the following mutual funds without hesitation to anyone, for any situation and length of time. These are the first funds in which I invested, and I've owned them all for 3.5 to 4 years. I have ranked them from highest to lowest 3 year return.\n\nBUFSX\nCAAPX\nMVALX\nDODBX\nOAKBX\n\nI advise you to do your own research and comparisons at Morningstar.com.
192317
Unlikely that kind of growth in mutual funds.  They are for safe, slower growth investing.  You would need something volitile, like oil stock to make that much money that quickly, and you stand to lose money that way.
1144084
With respect to the market in general, there's been a good-sized pullback from May to the current period.  Those stocks which have suffered most are the ones which have had the largest amount of growth (precious metals, emerging markets, etc.).  Many funds not only lost all of their gains Jan-Apr, but many actually dipped into negative YTD territory.\n\nSo you have to ask yourself: is this money you have in Fidelity on a permanent downward trend or an overdue correction?  Are your losses due to the possibility that your investments at Fidelity were focused on the highest growth (and therefore most volatile and overdue for correction) funds?  What are the long-term performance records of the funds you've chosen (4 months is a drop in the bucket of time)?\n\nBasically, you can't just look at gains and losses.  You have to look specifically at the funds you've chosen, and balance them against your personal risk tolerance.  It's very likely that with the right (or wrong) combination of funds, you could have lost as much with T Rowe Price, Vanguard, Bridgeway or any number of fund families.  If you don't believe me, look at their Websites and check the fund performances.  Red ink all over the place.\n\nDon't dump funds just because they're going down or buy them just because they're going up.  How do you know you're not buying at the top or selling at the bottom?  You'll inevitably wind up buying high and selling low.  Understand why you're buying into a fund and if the circumstances that made you buy them still make sense, stick with them.  If circumstances have changed, that's the time to re-evaluate and think about selling.  Also think about selling if the assumptions you made originally were wrong.
930567
Stocks, after their IPO, can go up or down.  \n\nBe very careful. If you're putting money into something that you know nothing about, know little about the mechanics, don't know what will make the stock go up or down and/or can't afford to lose this money - then this is gambling.\n\nMy recommendation is to save your money, invest in prudent investments for your situation.  This doesn't necessarily mean that you can't take on risk for high returns - it just means that you need to be careful and should probably do more homework before blindly throwing your money around.  You work hard for your money, don't neglect it. Treat it with respect and it will treat you nicely.