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Does Your Retirement Portfolio Hold These 3 Mutual Fund Misfires? - October 17, 2019

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You may need to start looking for a new financial advisor if your current one has put any of these high-fee, low-return "Mutual Fund Misfires of the Market" into your portfolio.

The easiest way to judge a mutual fund's quality over time is by analyzing its performance and fees. Our Zacks Rank of over 19,000 mutual funds has identified some of the worst of the worst mutual funds you should avoid, the funds with the highest fees and poorest long-term performance.

First, let's break down some of the funds currently part of our "Mutual Fund Misfires of the Market." If you happen to have put your money into any of these misfires, we'll help assess some of our best Zacks Ranked mutual funds.

3 Mutual Fund Misfires

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

Templeton Global Balanced Fund A1 (TINCX - Free Report) : Expense ratio: 1.2%. Management fee: 0.73%. After expenses, the 5 year return is 0.33%, meaning your fees are far higher than the fund's returns.

Royce Micro-Cap Conservative (RYMCX - Free Report) : 2.73% expense ratio, 1.25%. RYMCX is a Small Cap Value mutual fund, investing in small companies with stock market valuation less than $2 billion. This fund has yearly returns of 1.35% over the most recent five years. Another fund liable of having investors pay more in charges than what they receive in return.

ClearBridge International Small Cap C - 2.12% expense ratio, 0.8% management fee. LCOCX is a part of the Non US - Equity fund category, many of which will focus across all cap levels, and will typically allocate their investments between emerging and developed markets. LCOCX has generated annual returns of -0.38% over the last five years. Ouch!

3 Top Ranked Mutual Funds

Now that you've seen the worst Zacks Ranked mutual funds, let's have a look at some of the highest ranked funds with the lowest fees.

Harbor Large Cap Value Admiral (HRLVX - Free Report) : Expense ratio: 0.93%. Management fee: 0.6%. HRLVX is a Large Cap Value mutual fund, which invests in stocks with a market cap of $10 billion of more, but whose share prices do not reflect their intrinsic value. This fund has achieved five-year annual returns of an astounding 10.88%.

Federated Kaufmann Small Cap A (FKASX - Free Report) is a stand out fund. FKASX 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. With five-year annualized performance of 14.71% and expense ratio of 1.35%, this diversified fund is an attractive buy with a strong history of performance.

VY T. Rowe Price Diversified Mid Cap Growth Investor (IAXIX - Free Report) has an expense ratio of 0.78% and management fee of 0.74%. IAXIX is a Mid Cap Blend mutual fund, and usually features a portfolio with stocks of various styles and sizes, allowing for diversification within a strategy that focuses on mid cap companies. With annual returns of 12.38% over the last five years, this fund is a well-diversified fund with a long track record of success.

Bottom Line

These examples underscore the huge range in quality of mutual funds - from the really bad to the astonishingly good. There is no reason for your advisor to keep your money in any fund that charges more than you get in return (unless they're getting something out of it, like a high commission).

If you have concerns or any doubts about your investment advisor, read our just-released report:

4 Warning Signs That Your Advisor Might be Sabotaging Your Financial Future

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