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3 Mutual Fund Misfires To Avoid In Your Retirement Portfolio - January 28, 2020

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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.

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.

Neuberger Berman Absolute Return Multi Manager A (NABAX - Free Report) : Expense ratio: 2.34%. Management fee: 1.96%. After expenses, the 5 year return is -0.72%, meaning your fees are far higher than the fund's returns.

Wasatch Frontier Emerging Small Countries Fund (WAFMX - Free Report) : 2.2% expense ratio, 1.65%. WAFMX is a Non US - Equity fund. Many of these funds like to allocate across emerging and developed markets, and will often focus on all cap levels. This fund has yearly returns of -0.55% over the most recent five years. Another fund liable of having investors pay more in charges than what they receive in return.

Touchstone Ultra Short Duration Fixed Income A (TSDAX - Free Report) : Expense ratio: 0.69%. Management fee: 0.25%. TSDAX 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 annual returns of just -0.59%, it's no surprise this fund has received Zacks' "Strong Sell" ranking.

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.

Nicholas II Fund N (NNTWX - Free Report) : Expense ratio: 0.96%. Management fee: 0.52%. NNTWX is a Mid Cap Growth mutual fund. These funds aim to target companies with a market capitalization between $2 billion and $10 billion that are also expected to exhibit more extensive growth opportunities for investors than their peers. This fund has achieved five-year annual returns of an astounding 11.02%.

MassMutual Select Small Cap Growth Equity R5 (MSGSX - Free Report) is a stand out fund. MSGSX is a Small Cap Growth mutual fund and tends to feature small companies in up-and-coming industries and markets. With five-year annualized performance of 10.87% and expense ratio of 0.96%, this diversified fund is an attractive buy with a strong history of performance.

T. Rowe Price Cap Appreciation Adviser (PACLX - Free Report) : Expense ratio: 0.99%. Management fee: 0.59%. PACLX is categorized as an All Cap Value fund, and like the name suggests, invests across the cap spectrum in small-cap, mid-cap, and large-cap companies. PACLX has produced a 10.21% over the last five years.

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).

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