How do you regularly track a mutual fund?

[Ed_Flecko]

I know some people tell you that you shouldn't regularly (daily, weekly, etc.) "track" a mutual fund because it can make you nervous watching the ups and downs. That doesn't bother me.

Is there a website or, more likely, a software application that allows you to track a mutual fund(s) you might recommend?

Thank you,
Ed

 

[Quattro Pete]

You can create a portfolio of funds and track it on https://finance.yahoo.com/

I'm sure there are many other similar free websites out there.

 

[csandste]

Schwab has great tracking and analysis. Brought my Vanguard and TRowePrice stuff over to let Schwab consolidate my holdings and the difference is startling and appreciated.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Ditto Schwab. Of course, there are minimum amounts to get started.
And Yahoo is free!
Good luck and happy investing!

 

[ecotourist]

I fill in a spread sheet of all my investments monthly. After a while you know whether a mutual fund is performing. If it doesn't seem to be going anywhere I get more analytical about it and evaluate it specifically.

I'm quite picky when I buy an investment. So I expect a reasonable level of performance. I've had several investments for decades (one for about 40 years - at one point it had averaged 15% a year for 15 years). Most investors don't achieve the same level of performance as their investments. They jump in and out, chasing performance. I'm pretty slow moving - verging on sloth.

Most investments don't perform well every year. I'll give an investment 3 years. If it's not moving after a 3 year period it's gone.

I've only sold one investment quickly. It was a US growth fund that had previously done really well but dropped like a rock when I bought it. I got rid of it after a couple of months. As one of my staff used to say,"your first loss is your best loss".

 

[PimTac]

Apple has a Stocks app that comes with iOS. Add your ticker symbol and go. Schwab as mentioned already has a very good tracker that gives details on the fund.

 

[marc1]

The app I use on my phone to track is Webull. It has most ETFs and MFs available to track in addition to, of course, stocks on all the major NA indices.

 

[Wolf359]

I just use the tools they have at Fidelity. What info are you looking for that isn't in there?

FXAIX - Fidelity ® 500 Index Fund | Fidelity Investments

Analyze the Fund Fidelity ® 500 Index Fund having Symbol FXAIX for type mutual-funds and perform research on other mutual funds. Learn more about mutual funds at fidelity.com.

fundresearch.fidelity.com

 

[JHZR2]

I know some people tell you that you shouldn't regularly (daily, weekly, etc.) "track" a mutual fund because it can make you nervous watching the ups and downs. That doesn't bother me.

Is there a website or, more likely, a software application that allows you to track a mutual fund(s) you might recommend?

Thank you,
Ed

Whats the matter with the timeframe return percentages, and the chart that shows the growth of $10k compared to other standard indices?

 

[jurko]

Google Drive sheet is pretty good to track investments. using =googlefinance formulas to track all kinds of thing.

 

[ecotourist]

Before getting too far into mutual funds I`d suggest you think about ETFs. There`s a flavour for every neighbour, but the originals (in my opinion) are still the best. That is, ones having the broadest base possible, and at the lowest cost - an S&P 500 or Total Stock Market or similar.

A lot of my money is trapped in mutual funds. There would be huge capital gains taxes to get it out. But if I was starting over I`d be looking at ETFs for better performance and lower costs. Sure you can find an occasional mutual fund that has outperformed the relevant ETF. The problem is you can't find them in advance.

I'd suggest you pick an asset allocation 60/40, 50/50, 80/20 or whatever else you're comfortable with. Buy a US equity ETF, a US fixed income ETF, and then (a shocker here) an international equity ETF for at least some part of the equity portion. Then check how you're doing every few months, or once a year or so, rebalance the portfolio as necessary and put the paper work away again until next time. There is a very good chance that this simple portfolio will outperform the vast majority of mutual funds.

That's what I'd do. That, or buy an "all in one" (also known as a balanced) ETF having an allocation I'm comfortable with and a very low cost.

 

[Wolf359]

Before getting too far into mutual funds I`d suggest you think about ETFs. There`s a flavour for every neighbour, but the originals (in my opinion) are still the best. That is, ones having the broadest base possible, and at the lowest cost - an S&P 500 or Total Stock Market or similar.

A lot of my money is trapped in mutual funds. There would be huge capital gains taxes to get it out. But if I was starting over I`d be looking at ETFs for better performance and lower costs. Sure you can find an occasional mutual fund that has outperformed the relevant ETF. The problem is you can't find them in advance.

I'd suggest you pick an asset allocation 60/40, 50/50, 80/20 or whatever else you're comfortable with. Buy a US equity ETF, a US fixed income ETF, and then (a shocker here) an international equity ETF for at least some part of the equity portion. Then check how you're doing every few months, or once a year or so, rebalance the portfolio as necessary and put the paper work away again until next time. There is a very good chance that this simple portfolio will outperform the vast majority of mutual funds.

That's what I'd do. That, or buy an "all in one" (also known as a balanced) ETF having an allocation I'm comfortable with and a very low cost.

What ETF can you recommend that beats the costs of an S&P 500 index fund like FXAIX?

 

[ecotourist]

What ETF can you recommend that beats the costs of an S&P 500 index fund like FXAIX?

FXAIX looks like a good option. The performance is comparable to VOO (and as an index fund it should be) and the expense ratio is actually lower. Unless there is some concern about it that I'm not aware of, it looks like a very good option.

With either of these expense ratios the actual $ expense is trivial (either $3.00 or $1.50 per $10,000 per year).

There are small differences between mutual funds and ETFs and depending on what you want to do with it, you might prefer one or the other. In Canada anyway (and I assume in the US) if you want to deposit a small amount regularly a mutual fund would have lower costs, and dividends can be reinvested, but it can only be bought or sold at the end of the day. In comparison, an ETF can be bought or sold at any time during the day and can be used in various trading strategies, but purchases or sales (generally) cost a small amount.

For most investors, as long as the expense ratios are comparable, an index mutual fund would generally be the preferred option.

 

[Dave Hess]

The weighting of the top 10 comp within a mutual fund or ETF will affect its performance.

Some are conservative with that percentage, others are a little more focused on the top 10.

 

[NTexian]

Morningstar has been great for me for years. You can set up a free portfolio to track mutual funds, ETF's, stocks, etc.
I like it because you can consolidate assets from different brokerages/sources in one place.

 

[jurko]

Before getting too far into mutual funds I`d suggest you think about ETFs. There`s a flavour for every neighbour, but the originals (in my opinion) are still the best. That is, ones having the broadest base possible, and at the lowest cost - an S&P 500 or Total Stock Market or similar.

A lot of my money is trapped in mutual funds. There would be huge capital gains taxes to get it out. But if I was starting over I`d be looking at ETFs for better performance and lower costs. Sure you can find an occasional mutual fund that has outperformed the relevant ETF. The problem is you can't find them in advance.

I'd suggest you pick an asset allocation 60/40, 50/50, 80/20 or whatever else you're comfortable with. Buy a US equity ETF, a US fixed income ETF, and then (a shocker here) an international equity ETF for at least some part of the equity portion. Then check how you're doing every few months, or once a year or so, rebalance the portfolio as necessary and put the paper work away again until next time. There is a very good chance that this simple portfolio will outperform the vast majority of mutual funds.

That's what I'd do. That, or buy an "all in one" (also known as a balanced) ETF having an allocation I'm comfortable with and a very low cost.

Good advice.
I learned the hard way about mutual funds after I transferred my 401K to Vanguard IRA when I retired in 2015. I purchased handful of mutual funds and I thought I was good. But due to my always more active approach with investing I soon found out the limitations with MF. So I sold them all and got into ETF's which are more liquid and can be traded like stocks. I bought VNQ, VDE, VOX , VGT and VWO ETF's and occasionally traded with them.

At the end of 2019 out of the blue something crawled up my you know what and I completely lost appetite for investing and following stock market. I felt like I had plenty for whatever years I got left and I was also getting more and more busy with other fun things so I sold everything and was 100% in money market. But when oil price war between Saudis and Russia came on my radar and when covid hit I noticed that energy stocks got decimated. So last year in March I purchased 4,000 shares of VDE at very attractive aver. price of $32.53 per share.

And lastly here's little episode I had with day trading in early 2000 when I took 14 months sabbatical between jobs .
I opened margin account with Scottrade and got to work. I used to get up 5 days a week at 1AM after 4-5 hours sleep and did analysis on stocks purely based on technical indicators, trading volume and high beta number. By 7AM I was ready. I did that for 6 months and executed 483 trades. I achieved overall return of 15.8% during that time frame. But something happened to me and it wasn't good. I was constantly exhausted, irritated, on edge and stressed so I quit and never did it again since.

 

[javacontour]

I know some people tell you that you shouldn't regularly (daily, weekly, etc.) "track" a mutual fund because it can make you nervous watching the ups and downs. That doesn't bother me.

Is there a website or, more likely, a software application that allows you to track a mutual fund(s) you might recommend?

Thank you,
Ed

I have a spreadsheet with a couple of return scenarios projected going out to say 2033. I log into my account about once a quarter or so and make sure I'm on track.

I'm roughly 2-3 months behind my upper range estimate. If I get fed up with working, I will look at when I'd hit the lower range estimate and consider retirement.

I don't look very often, and I'm a boring, slow and steady investor, not a trader.

 

[supton]

I just have funds (target and growth) and I'm too far out from retirement. So I only look sporadically. Not much I can do other than keep adding more.

 

[tnt_motorsports]

I use Fidelity for my retirement. They have details on the mutual fund that is more than the average person would care about. I personally want to know what is in the fund, what are the expenses of the fund and what is the historical performance.

That being said I use the Apple stock app to watch the market daily and my mutual funds update overnight on there.

Just my $0.02

 

[ecotourist]

For most investors, as long as the expense ratios are comparable, an index mutual fund would generally be the preferred option.

I should add that this comment only applies to index mutual funds.

My previous comments about mutual funds still apply to other mutual funds. Very few keep up with the relevant index after fees. And while a few mutual funds will perform better than the index - you can't tell which ones in advance.

Meanwhile I'm leaving a lot of my money in non-index mutual funds. The performance of these particular mutual funds isn't terrible and I'd have to pay large amounts of capital gains taxes to get my money out. So I'm trapped in other words.

But if I was starting out again it would be with broad based, low cost index ETFs (or as pointed out by Wolf359 - in carefully selected broad based, very low cost, index mutual funds).