Table of Contents
For Elisabeth
Foreword
MANY MUTUAL FUND GUIDES, quite frankly, are tired rehashings of stale academic papers. They run you through the history and evolution of the fund industry and discuss the efficient frontier, the importance of diversification, and the necessity of a long-term perspective, but they always pull back when it gets to the good stuff, the stuff that really matterswhom you can trust and why. Thats certainly not the case with Fund Spy, a book built entirely around original research, as well as pull-no-punches opinions on how you should invest and to whom you can entrust your savings. This book is the real deal, an insiders guide to what the fund industry is likethe good, the bad, and the funny.
Mutual fund analysis is at the very core of Morningstars identity, and while there are many teams of great people at the company, theres no group more passionate in their mission than Morningstars fund analysts. I ought to know. I was the companys first analyst, and it has been a delight to see the team evolve over the past two decades. Crucial to the teams growth has been the immense contribution of Russ Kinnel. As youll see in the pages that follow, Russ brings keen insights, a wicked wit, and a genuine concern for the small investor to his work. Hes a wonderful writer and has led many ground-breaking research efforts, several of which are detailed here. Moreover, hes a blast to work with. No one sends a sharper, funnier e-mail than Russ.
Fund Spy gives a great picture of what its like to be a fund analyst at Morningstar. Trading costs, managers investing (or not) in their own funds, variations on an investment stylethese are the kinds of things we discuss daily and work to teach our new analysts about. Russ has condensed 20 years of our collective learning into a tidy primer that would be a great asset for any fund investor. He doesnt kowtow to fund industry interests; he simply does what we ask all our analysts to do: Tell the story as fairly and accurately as possible, and do it from the investors perspective. When you can do all that and combine it with Russs wit, youve got a winning combination.
In the pages that follow, youll get the inside dope on how to assess a fund managers commitment, why costs matter so much to your results, and how to avoid common pitfalls in fund selection and portfolio construction. But like any great storyteller, Russ saves the best for last. His rundown on the top fund shopsboth load and no-loadand his take on the best, time-tested funds are both dead on the mark. I wouldnt change a word. Having Russ at your side when navigating the world of mutual funds is like having Quentin Tarantino helping you fill your Netflix list, or having Lester Bangs at your side as you sort through stacks of classic rock and roll records. Even if you know the territory, youre sure to learn something new and discover some hidden gems.
Enjoy!
DON PHILLIPS
Managing Director
Morningstar
Preface
I STARTED AT Morningstar in 1994. That year, interest rates were spiking, and the Mexican equity bubble inspired by NAFTA turned into a panic. Soon after that, Californias Orange County defaulted on a slew of debt brought on by unwise mortgage investments. Over the ensuing years, we saw a Russian default mess, an Asian meltdown, the bailout of Long-Term Capital Management, the bursting of the Internet bubble, the attacks of September 11, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the corporate meltdowns of Enron and WorldCom, and, most recently, the subprime housing bubble bursting and shaking financial institutions to their knees.
Yet somehow, we got the largest bull market in there somewhere, and nearly all the top money managers and investment firms are still standing with strong long-term results to show for it. Yes, buy-and-hold investing still works, while trendier strategies have their moments and then collapse. With the markets at depressed levels (as of fourth quarter 2008), this is a great time to invest with good managers, provided youre in it for the long term.
I started writing Morningstars Fund Spy column back in 1997, and over the years Ive shared lots of ideas, observations, and laughs at the fund worlds occasionally out-of-control marketing departments. Ill share the results of years of research and a lot of experience from talking with managers and seeing the difference between words and deeds.
My aim is to make investing much easier for you by showing you the key data points and sharing my years of research on the best managers. You dont need a ton of data or sophisticated programsjust focus and patience. Ill show you the handful of quantitative and qualitative factors you need to pick winning funds. In fact, Ive built it all into an easy-to-use tool at www.morningstar.com/goto/Fundspy. Just plug in a fund ticker or name and youre good to go.
If recent markets have you jaded and you think all mutual funds are the same, take another look. In Chapter 1, Ill reveal the huge gap between the returns of above-average and below-average funds. Youll see that it will be a lot easier to reach your long-term goals if most of your funds outperform.
Weve long known that low costs and dedication to clients were the keys to successful funds, but now we have some new tools to do a better job of finding funds that meet those criteria. We now have data on how much fund managers are investing in their funds so that we can more accurately judge their commitment to shareholders. In Chapter 2, Ill look at how to separate the good managers from the indifferent.
In Chapter 3, Ill shine a light on a crucial piece of information that has been hidden all these years: trading costs. Trading costs are as big and important as expense ratios, but until we came out with our data on trading costs, individual investors had no way of knowing what they were. Ill show you how we calculate trading costs, what they mean, and how they will help you to improve your fund selection.
The other half of the cost equation is expense ratios. If youre skeptical about the importance of expenses, allow me to show you that theyre more important than you think. In Chapter 4, Ill show you that fund companies hide a lot of their high-cost losers in a way that obscures the awful truth about fund costs. More importantly, Ill show you just how much you can improve your chances of success with low-cost funds.
But what about performance? Im glad you asked, because Ill show you how to avoid the performance trap of betting the ranch on tempting recent results. Theres a better way to use returns; Ill walk you through it in Chapter 5.
The importance of quantitative factors in choosing the right funds is huge, but so is the qualitative side. For starters you need to understand fund strategies and the risk they entail in order to build a sound portfolio and to use funds wisely. Ill make it easy for you in Chapter 6. We see lots of good funds that investors end up using poorly because they didnt contemplate the downside inherent in a funds strategy. This bit isnt part of the formula, but it should be part of your process because you have to know what you own.
You are essentially hiring a manager or managers to handle your life savings, so you need to know how to pick good managers and avoid the ones that let conflicts of interest get the better of them. In Chapter 7, Ill help you to spot the good ones and introduce you to our stewardship grades. At Morningstar, we have years of experience interviewing managers and evaluating funds, and we also sift through all the SEC filings and do on-site visits to find out which firms really care about shareholders. We boil all that down to a letter grade.