Mutual Fund account, anyone have one?

This topic was created in the Finances & Investments forum by prettyladii on Wednesday, October 7, 2009 and has 3 replies.

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@prettyladii
16 Years1,000+ Posts

I want to open a mutual fund account. I just don't know how to go about it. I'm gonna go to the bank and speak to someone there. I just want to know if there's anything I need to look out for. Any scams with it, the minimum amount to start with.

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@cap..
16 Years

I have. I dont knwo how it is in your country but in India u just need to have a pan card and go to any fund house and invest in the scheme u interested in.

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@domanb
17 YearsCancer

I have several. My bank does it for free here in Canada. Things to watch out for are guaranteed returns, since this is truly impossible in a free market and nobody can predict the future. Also, you need to know what types of fees are charged on the fund. Some charge initial investment fees, so called front-load fees. Some charge when you withdraw the money, so called trailing fees. The ones I have are no load, so no fees what-so-ever for for the funds to run. However, they all have high MER's (Management Expense Ratios). These range anywhere from 0.65% - 2.10% for the types of funds I am invested in. This is basically the amount you will lose every year. So if your mutual fund makes 8% and it charges a 2% MER, you only make 6% . The best funds to start with are probably index funds. They mimic on of the major stock exchange indexes around the world, and since they are not actively managed, but rather try to duplicate an existing index, the MER's are really low.