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3 Mutual Fund Misfires to Avoid - February 20, 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.

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.

Eagle MLP Strategy A (EGLAX - Free Report) : 1.65% expense ratio and 1.25% management fee. EGLAX is a Sector - Energy mutual fund, which encompasses a wide range of vastly changing and vitally important industries throughout this massive global sector. With a five year after-expenses return of -9.87%, you're mostly paying more in fees than returns.

SEI Multi-Asset Real Return Fund A (SEIAX - Free Report) : 1% expense ratio, 0.55%. SEIAX is classified as an Allocation Balanced fund, which seeks to invest in a balance of asset types, like stocks, bonds, and cash, and including precious metals or commodities is not unusual. This fund has yearly returns of 0.4% over the most recent five years. Another fund liable of having investors pay more in charges than what they receive in return.

Transamerica Small Cap Core A : This fund has an expense ratio of 1.26% and management fee of 0.83%. SCCAX is a Small Cap Value mutual fund option, which typically invest in companies with market caps under $2 billion. With an annual average return of 1.09% over the last five years, the only thing absolute about this absolute return fund is that it absolutely deserves to be on our "worst offender" list.

3 Top Ranked Mutual Funds

Now that we've covered our "worst offender" list, let's take a look at some of Zacks' highest ranked mutual funds with some of the lowest fees you may want to consider.

JPMorgan Mid Cap Growth Fund A (OSGIX - Free Report) is a fund that has an expense ratio of 1.23%, and a management fee of 0.65%. OSGIX is a Mid Cap Growth mutual fund. Mid Cap Growth funds pick stocks--usually companies with a market cap between $2 billion and $10 billion--that demonstrate extensive growth opportunities for investors compared to their peers. With yearly returns of 10.57% over the last five years, this fund clearly wins.

City Natural Rochdale US Core Equity & Income Service Class (CNRVX - Free Report) : Expense ratio: 0.77%. Management fee: 0.4%. CNRVX is a Large Cap Growth mutual fund, and these funds invest in many large U.S. firms that are projected to grow at a faster rate than their large-cap peers. CNRVX has managed to produce a robust 12.27% over the last five years.

Fidelity Trend Fund (FTRNX - Free Report) is an attractive fund with a five-year annualized return of 13.45% and an expense ratio of just 0.65%. FTRNX is a Global - Equity mutual fund investing in bigger markets like the U.S., Europe, and Japan; these kinds of funds aren't limited by geography.

Bottom Line

Along these lines, there you have it - if your financial guide has you put your money into any of our "Mutual Fund Misfires of the Market," there is a strong likelihood that they are either dormant at the worst possible time, inept, or (in all probability) filling their pockets with high fee commissions at the cost of your financial objectives.

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