The Daily Mutual Fund Prices

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 418.

Other Types of Mutual Funds

There are several types of mutual funds other than the money market funds and common stock funds. There are a large number of bond funds, investing in various assortments of corporate and government bonds. There are tax-exempt bond funds, both long-term and shorter-term, for the high-bracket investor. There are "balanced" funds which maintain portfolios including both stocks and bonds, with the objective of reducing risk. And there are specialized funds which invest in options, foreign securities, etc.

One advantage of a mutual fund is the ease with which you can follow a fund's performance and the daily value of your investment. Every day, mutual fund prices are listed in a special table in the financial section of many newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal. Stock funds and bond funds are listed together in a single alphabetical table, except that funds which are part of a major fund group are usually listed under the group heading (Dreyfus, Fidelity, Oppenheimer, Vanguard, etc.).

The listings somewhat resemble those for inactive over-the-counter stocks. But instead of "bid" and "asked", the columns are usually headed "NAV" and "Offer Price". "NAV" is the net asset value per share of the fund; it is each share's proportionate interest in the total market value of the fund's portfolio of securities, as calculated each night. It is also, generally, the price per share at which the fund redeemed (bought back) shares submitted on that day by shareholders who wished to sell. The "Offer Price" (offering price) column shows the price paid by investors who bought shares from the fund on that day. In the case of a load fund, this price is the net asset value plus the commission or "load". In the case of a no-load fund, the symbol "N.L." appears in the offering price column, which means that shares of the fund were sold to investors at net asset value per share, without commission. Finally, there is a column on the far right which shows the change in net asset value compared with the previous day.