«He gave us a simple quiz on growing your money and it taught me how little I really know
about mutual fund fees and costs and their effect on wealth - building,»
One of the responses I received to last month's diatribe
about mutual fund fees was that the average mutual fund investor did not object to them because they were unseen.
Not exact matches
Typically, people need to invest
about $ 500,000 to access an investment council — some of the bigger name firms include Gluskin Sheff and Leon Frazer & Associates — but
fees are lower,
about 1 % to 1.5 % of total assets, instead of a 2.5 %
fee on an individual
mutual fund, says Mackenzie.
For example, a couple nearing retirement with a $ 750,000 retirement portfolio would pay
about $ 18,000 a year in
fees if they were completely invested in typical
mutual funds.
But he lied
about the
mutual funds» performance that he was pitching, the
fees they were charging, the commissions he was charging, and a few more I can't remember now.
Mutual funds, and the bank representatives that push them, consistently lie
about the
fees they are charging.
Some plan sponsors have been sued for poorly performing portfolios, others for failing to educate participants
about the risks of investing, but many observers predict a wave of legal action over the
fees — high
fees and hidden
fees — embedded in the
mutual funds that underpin so many retirement accounts.
The
fees we charge investors (and ourselves as investors) are
about half that of the average actively managed
mutual fund, while our margins are probably twice as large.
In other words, an investor smart enough to put $ 10,000 in some plain vanilla index
fund at the start of 2013 likely had
about $ 13,000 by the year's close, and that's not counting dividends (or subtracting brokerage or
mutual fund fees).
This would mean every sales pitch would require clear disclosures
about fees and restrictions, just like
mutual funds.
Trading
Mutual funds of No Load type will give you a direct profit share and you do not have to worry
about fee involved etc..
A no - load
mutual fund, by contrast, charges no commissions and costs only a small amount per year in management
fees — at Vanguard,
about 0.2 percent.
Using detailed data from two large Canadian
mutual fund dealers (accounting for
about 5 % of their sector) for 3,276 Canadian financial advisors and their 488,263 clients, and returns and
fees for 3,023 associated
mutual funds, during January 1999 through December 2013, they find that:
Bank
funds tend to have lower than average
mutual fund management
fees, but in their mix, the average
fee charged for equity
funds is
about 1.8 per cent.
You can learn more
about bond
mutual fund fees here.
An agent does get a
fee for handling such transactions, but should be very knowledgeable
about the
mutual fund market.
The advantage of ETFs, is that you can buy a diversified investment without having to pay the associate trading
fees if you bought a number of stocks, and the ETF management
fees are considerably lower than their
mutual fund counterparts,
about.1 % vs. 1.5 % respectively.
Straight Talk
About Fees and Penalties on
Mutual Funds
(When people predict future downward pressure on
mutual fund fees I tell this story
about iPods and convertibles.
If you're a typical Canadian, who invests primarily through
mutual funds, you already hand over
about $ 2,000 a year in
fees for every $ 100,000 you have invested.
On the other hand, the
fee at the average
mutual fund in Canada is
about 2.5 %.
Mutual funds fail to beat the market by
about their
fees... so, if you MUST «invest» at such a simple level, at least buy a super-low-cost Index
Fund.
Learn
about considerations for investors when buying shares in a
mutual fund for a long - term investment, including
fees, type of management and portfolio goals.
Bank
funds tend to have lower than average
mutual fund management
fees, but in their mix, the average
fee charged for equity
funds is
about 1.8 per cent.
Additionally,
fee - based investors tend to be less negatively impacted by mandated disclosures, since commission - based accounts often include embedded
fees paid by the
mutual fund companies that investors may not know
about.
You have read articles
about how high
mutual fund fees are, and you wonder why people buy them.
I've made similar points myself
about Canada's industry: can the
mutual fund industry (which charges
fees considerably higher than America's) really be motivated to tell young investors
about the existence of lower cost and more tax - efficient ETFs?
Add to that management
fees of
about 1.5 % for his
mutual funds and the Boysons» total investing costs would soar to 3 %, or $ 39,000 a year.
We learned all we could
about mutual funds, especially the
fee structure.
Keeping costs low is essential, and most Canadians are paying far too much:
about $ 1 trillion is invested in
mutual funds, many with absurdly high
fees of 2.5 % or more.
If you're using
mutual funds in a tax - sheltered account, then there are no brokerage
fees or capital gains taxes to worry
about, so frequent rebalancing is probably fine.
Self - directed investing is the alternative to
mutual funds, and I'm part of the camp that believes in self - directed investing because it allows you to save on
fees, learn
about finance, and potentially post market - beating returns.
That's
about the annual management
fee for some
mutual funds.
Just last month it saved me $ 150 in annual
mutual fund fees that I had no idea
about!
If I had absolutely no knowledge
about investing, I would have likely used a financial adviser from a place like Edward Jones or Ameriprise Financial (AMP), and end up paying 1 % — 2 % / year in adviser
fees and
mutual fund fees.
I read something in a book the other day
about mutual fund companies that continue to charge 12b - 1
fees on
mutual funds that are closed to new investors.
One very important thing to keep in mind
about the «comparison» above is that the management
fees were kept the same and the load was a little higher than a
mutual fund would charge for 100K.
These firms will build and maintain a portfolio made up of their own low - cost
mutual funds for
about 1.2 % in
fees.
Currently, a typical
mutual fund holder pays
about $ 2,500 a year in annual
fees on a $ 100,000 portfolio.
They acquire an emerging markets
mutual fund here and a gold ETF there, plus a few stocks they read
about in the paper, and before you know it, they have no idea what they're invested in or how much they're paying in
fees.
If you're concerned
about how much you might be paying in
mutual fund fees, check out this free tool called FeeX which will scan your portfolio and tell you how much you're losing to
fees.
For example, a recent Morningstar
fee study showed that the average asset - weighted expense ratio for all actively managed
mutual funds is roughly 0.80 % compared with
about 0.20 % for index
funds and ETFs.
I've written
about CDN bank wrap
mutual funds a few times and this move really isn't much of a surprise when you examine the amount of
fees they generate by offering a «professional product».
They have six
funds with
fees that are
about 25 % -50 % cheaper than most retail
mutual funds.
But what
about investors who invest in typical
mutual funds that charge a
fee of 2.5 percent.
The best
mutual funds are invariably offered by companies that are transparent and upfront
about their
fees and operations, and they do not try to hide information from potential investors or in any way mislead them.
I'm surprised they didn't talk
about fees and the fact that the index
funds still beat 60 % of active
mutual fund managers.
The good thing
about ETFs is that they cut the management
fees you pay to an absolute minimum — in most cases, less than a quarter of what you would pay for an equivalent
mutual fund.
You may want to talk to your HR department
about the high
fees for the
mutual funds in your group RRSP.
Wealthsimple charges a 0.5 % management
fee and the ETFs charge
about 0.15 %, while a traditional
mutual fund investor pays 0.72 %.