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3 Mutual Fund Misfires To Avoid In Your Retirement Portfolio - December 13, 2019

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If your advisor has you invested in any of these "Mutual Fund Misfires of the Market" with high fees and low returns, you need to rethink your advisor.

How can you tell a good mutual fund from a bad one? It's pretty basic: If the fund has high fees and performs poorly, it's not good. Of course, there's a range - but when a mutual fund earns a Zacks Rank of #5 (Strong Sell) that means it's among the worst of roughly 19,000 funds we rate each day.

Below, you'll read about some of the funds included in our current list of "Mutual Fund Misfires of the Market." And if by chance you're invested in any of these misfires, we'll help and review some of our highest Zacks Ranked mutual funds.

3 Mutual Fund Misfires

Now, let's take a look at three market misfires.

Ivy Natural Resources N (INRSX - Free Report) : 0.93% expense ratio and 0.85% management fee. INRSX is a Sector - Energy mutual fund, which encompasses a wide range of vastly changing and vitally important industries throughout this massive global sector. With a five year after-costs return of -7.97%, you're for the most part paying more in charges than returns.

Catalyst/SMH High Income I (HIIIX - Free Report) : HIIIX is a High Yield - Bonds option. These mutual funds are often known as junk bonds since they are below investment grade. This means they are at an elevated risk of default, at least when compared to their investment grade peers. HIIIX offers an expense ratio of 1.22% and annual returns of 0.65% over the last five years. Even if this fund can be positioned as a hedge during the recent bull-market, paying more in fees than returns over the long-term should never be an acceptable result.

American Funds Short Term Bond Fund of America R2E (RAAEX - Free Report) : This fund has an expense ratio of 1.18% and management fee of 0.27%. RAAEX is a Government Bond - Short fund, and these funds hold securities issued by the U.S. federal government. This category focuses on the short end of the curve, and are seen as extremely low risk securities from a default perspective. With an annual average return of 0.74% over the last five years, the only thing absolute about this absolute return fund is that it absolutely deserves to be on our "worst offender" list.

3 Top Ranked Mutual Funds

Since you've seen the most noticeably lowest Zacks Ranked mutual funds, how about we take a look at some of the top ranked mutual funds with the least fees.

MFS Global Growth R6 (MWOKX - Free Report) is a winner, with an expense ratio of just 1.05% and a five-year annualized return track record of 11.01%.

Loomis Sayles Small Cap Growth N (LSSNX - Free Report) has an expense ratio of 0.82% and management fee of 0.75%. LSSNX is one of many Small Cap Growth mutual funds; these funds tend to create their portfolios around stocks with market capitalization of less than $2 billion. Thanks to yearly returns of 11.3% over the last five years, LSSNX is an effectively diversified fund with a long reputation of solidly positive performance.

DoubleLine Shiller Enhanced CAPE I (DSEEX - Free Report) : Expense ratio: 0.55%. Management fee: 0.45%. DSEEX is a Large Cap Blend fund, targeting companies with market caps of over $10 billion. These funds offer investors a stability, and are perfect for people with a "buy and hold" mindset. DSEEX has produced a 13.96% over the last five years.

Bottom Line

Along these lines, there you have it - if your financial guide has you put your money into any of our "Mutual Fund Misfires of the Market," there is a strong likelihood that they are either dormant at the worst possible time, inept, or (in all probability) filling their pockets with high fee commissions at the cost of your financial objectives.

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