"The Mutual Fund Industry Handbook is a remarkably important work . . . I am profoundly impressed by the broad and comprehensive sweep of information and knowledge that this book makes available to industry participants, college and business school students, and anyone else with a serious interest in this industry." -- From the Foreword by John C. Bogle President, Bogle Financial Markets Research Center Founder and former chief executive, The Vanguard Group A Foreword by John C. Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Group and one of the most respected leaders in the mutual fund industry, sets the stage for this authoritative book that explains the complexities of the phenomenal industry in simple terms. Investors like the fact that mutual funds offer professional management, easy diversification, liquidity, convenience, a wide range of investment choices, and regulatory protection. Mutual Fund Industry Handbook touches on all of those features and focuses on the diverse functions performed in the day-to-day operations of the mutual fund industry. You'll learn about: Front-office functions-analysis, buying, and selling. Back-office functions, including settlement, custody, accounting, and reporting. Commission structures-front-end loads, back-end loads, or level loads. The various fund categories used by the Investment Company Institute, Morningstar, and Lipper. The roles played by fund managers, investment advisors, custodial banks, distributors, transfer agents, and other third-party service providers. If you want a definitive reference on the mutual fund industry, this is the book for you.

Today there are more and more mutual funds, as more and more people understand that mutual funds are the best place to put money. These funds include the good and the bad, the expensive and the bargain-priced, the short-term and the long-term, the highly secure and the very risky. So how do you find the funds that are right for you without spending a lifetime trying to become a market maven and finding yourself buried in graphs and charts? What you can do very easily is spend a little time with the swiftest, surest, smartest book ever to lead you through the mutual fund maze with wit and wisdom. No other guide tells you so clearly, so concisely, and so captivatingly what different kinds of mutual funds there are, how to choose your own goals and decide your own risk level, how to split your mutual fund investments to reflect your wants and needs, how to quickly learn which funds are the best of their kind, how and where to buy funds at the lowest price, how to spot hidden charges, how to track performance, how to know when to sell, how to make funds work for you in retirement, and much more.

Written by a veteran financial planner, this guide uniquely covers the statistical and non-statistical issues involved in selecting and managing a balanced portfolio of mutual funds. It explains investment policy development techniques, explores all asset classes of mutual funds, and covers the critical issues of style analyses, data interpretation, and style management.

Where to invest for growth can be a daunting decision for even an experienced investor. For a beginner, it can seem downright impossible. The author covers in this investment guide all kinds of investments including the stocks, treasury securities, municipal and corporate bonds, mutual funds and exchange traded funds and introduces even the master limited partnerships and real estate investment trusts. Some of the highlights of coverage are the concept of compounding and dollar cost averaging selection and analysis of stocks using the fundamental approach to stock evaluation supplemented with technical analysis selection and analysis of mutual funds and ETFs asset allocation, diversification and rebalancing guidelines for buying and selling the securities evaluating market levels and the discussion of market volatility and crash economic and tax considerations in investing

An authoritative, must-read guide to making more informed decisions about mutual funds Providing a balance of theory and application, this authoritative book will enable you to evaluate the various performance and risk attributes of mutual funds. It covers a broad range of topics, including understanding the advantages and disadvantages of mutual funds, evaluating stock/bond allocations within fund portfolios, assessing fund diversification risk, measuring fund returns and risk, and making fund buy/sell decisions. While informative chapters combine clear summaries of existing research with practical guidelines for mutual fund analysis, step-by-step decision checklists guide you through the selection of various mutual funds. Puts the risks and rewards of mutual fund investing in perspective Skillfully examines how to select and evaluate the best mutual funds Outlines mutual fund service advantages and disadvantages Discusses the long- and short-term effectiveness of mutual funds Covering major theoretical and management issues in mutual fund analysis and portfolio management, this book is an authoritative guide.

Investment professional Larry E. Swedroe describes the crucial difference between "active" and "passive" mutual funds, and tells you how you can win the investment game through long-term investments in such indexes as the S&P 500 instead of through the active buying and selling of stocks. A revised and updated edition of an investment classic, The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You'll Ever Need remains clear, understandable, and effective. This edition contains a new chapter comparing index funds, ETFs, and passive asset class funds, an expanded section on portfolio care and maintenance, the addition of Swedroe's 15 Rules of Prudent Investing, and much more. In clear language, Swedroe shows how the newer index mutual funds out-earn, out-perform, and out-compound the older funds, and how to select a balance "passive" portfolio for the long hail that will repay you many times over. This indispensable book also provides you with valuable information about: - The efficiency of markets today - The five factors that determine expected returns of a balanced equity and fixed income portfolio - Important facts about volatility, return, and risk - Six steps to building a diversified portfolio using Modern Portfolio Theory - Implementing the winning strategy - and more.

With fifty trillion in worldwide assets, the growth of mutual funds is a truly global phenomenon and deserves a broad international analysis. Local political economies and legal regimes create different regulatory preferences for the oversight of these funds, and academics, public officials and legal practitioners wishing to understand the global investing environment will require a keen awareness of these international differences. The contributors, leading scholars in the field of investment law from around the world, provide a current legal analysis of funds from a variety of perspectives and using an array of methodologies that consider the large fundamental questions governing the role and regulation of investment funds. This volume also explores the identity and behavior of investors as well as issues surrounding less orthodox funds, such as money market funds, ETFs, and private funds. This Handbook will provide legal and financial scholars, academics, lawyers and regulators with a vital tool for working with mutual funds. Contributors include: W.A. Birdthistle, M. Bullard, I.H-Y Chiu, B. Clarke, Q. Curtis, D.A. DeMott, J. Fanto, J.E. Fisch, P. Hanrahan, L.P.Q. Johnson, W.A. Kaal, A.K. Krug, A.B. Laby, J.D. Morley, A. Palmiter, I. Ramsay, E.D. Roiter, M. White, D.A. Zetzsche