Morningstar Reviews

Go to the www.morningstar.com web site and click on the Funds tab. Find the Category Returns link in the Mutual Fund Performance section. For each of the following mutual fund categories, specify which mutual fund within the category had the highest 3-month return, 1 year, and 5 year returns. Categories: Domestic Stock Funds, Balanced Funds, International Stock Funds, Fixed-Income Funds, and Municipal Bond Funds. [You can click on the 3-month, 1 year, and 5 year column headings to sort the data in ascending or descending order.] Find the net asset value, expense ratio, and top-5 holdings of each of these funds.

Choosing a Mutual Fund

Go to the http://finance.yahoo.com web site and scroll down until you see the link for the Mutual Fund Screener. Use the drop-down boxes to select the criteria for mutual funds that are of interest to you. How many funds are shown in your results? If there are no funds or only a few funds that meet your criteria, try loosening your standards. If there are too many funds, try stricter standards. You can click on any column heading in the results list to sort by that criterion.