Web Site Offers Valuable Free Help to Mutual Fund Investors

The vast majority of mutual fund investors consistently achieve far poorer results than market averages and tend to make the majority of their purchases, exchanges, and cash outs at just the wrong times. For the last four years, a highly informative web site has tried to help investors avoid these pitfalls. However, unless more people start taking advantage of this valuable free service, the site may be forced to suspend operations.

Back in the mid to late 1990s, almost any stock-related investment you picked, it seemed, would lead you to easy success. We all know that era is now gone.

Most people hold on to the hope that in the years ahead, when many of them hope to retire, stocks will again return to their winning ways. After all, stocks have averaged returns of about 10% over the last 100 years or so, right? So it seems this would be well worth continuing the ride assuming we get the payoff in the end. But will we?

If you, like the majority, cling to this optimistic view, consider this: Research reported recently in the New York Times states that due to cashing in of stocks by retiring baby boomers during the next 15 years, there will be more sellers than buyers of stocks, causing prices to continue to head down.

While obviously, population trends are not the only determinant of stock prices, there are other reasons for caution in assuming that stocks will always eventually reward investors, an assumption that therefore relieves us from having to think (or worry) much about our investments. The main one is probably this: The world is far too unpredictable a place to simply have confidence in any one anticipated-in-advance outcome.

Couple this unpredictability with the proven fact that most people are poor market "timers" and it becomes even more reasonable to conclude that many of them will never achieve the hoped for 10% annual returns: We all, even the pros, tend to make the majority of our purchases, exchanges, and cash outs at just the wrong times.

Research shows that the vast majority of mutual fund investors consistently achieve results far poorer than market averages. For example, from January 1984 through December 2000, the average yearly return for the S&P 500 Index was 16.3% a year while the same results for stock fund investors was a scant 5.3% a year!

In the face of these difficulties, for the last four years an informative web site has helped investors side-step many pitfalls suffered by the majority of investors. The site, http://funds-newsletter.com, offers a free newsletter and numerous articles on investment strategies. Since its inception, by following its recommendations, investors would have done far better than the market averages.

But, according to Tom Madell, Ph.D., Publisher of the site's Mutual Fund Research Newsletter, unless more people start taking advantage of this valuable free service, the site may be forced to suspend operations. He states that "as a writer, a researcher, and most of all, an investor who has done well enough to retire early, I figured maybe others could also benefit from my ideas and views on what I see as a constantly changing world of investing." But unfortunately, most investors have become very skeptical as a result of the bear market, he says, and therefore aren't now usually willing to pay much heed to any investment advice.

You can avail yourself of this, thus far, market beating information by visiting the site and also requesting a password there which further allows you to see the site's newest and best ideas for successful fund investing.