What are the best mutual funds to invest in?

Centroles, Most of the Vanguard funds are good ones for long-term investments. You don't say how much you have invested, but you should diversify your investments to more funds as you gain in your investments. Your present age and how much you are saving matters. While young, it's okay to take some risks. Go to Morningstar.com and look at funds that have performed better than the S&P for the past 5 years and 10 years. The blue chips are usually pretty safe bets if they have good management. Most things are cyclical, so don't worry about the short term ups and downs, and stick with the program. Never try to outguess the market - it never works. And fianally, manage your own money; you're the only one that has an "invested" interest.

Heed cicerone.

I work in the mutual fund industry so I can give come quick suggestions. Cicerone hit most on the button. Without knowing more about you personally it is difficult to tell you what you should invest in. You have to consider what the purpose of your investment is - seeing you are investing in an IRA, it must be for retirement. The next step is to determine your age, for example if you are saving for retirement and you are in your 20s, you should invest heavily in stocks and those with greater growth potential with little in bonds or blue chip stocks. As you get closer and closer to retirement, you should switch slowly switch your investments to saver, more income based funds, like bond funds (non-high yield bond funds). Another thing to determine is your personal risk/return feelings. Some people are willing to take a greater risk and as a result you are typically rewarded with greater returns.

Generally mutual funds (except those geared toward one industry) are pretty much diversified in a number of different types of investments. However, you do have to remember there still will be risks by having all your money in one mutual fund. Say for instance you are invested in a small cap fund, the fund may own 200 securities in various industries, but if something happens in regard to small cap investments in general, your fund could fall. So it is best to have some money in fixed income as well, especially as you near retirement.

Overall, I would not feel comfortable suggested a particular fund. I could suggest the best way to invest in mutual funds and what to look for. It is usually better, especially in the case of a retirement, to invest smaller amounts monthly or quarterly rather than to invest in large lump sums. When choosing a fund, compare the history of the fund's returns - found in annual reports, and their expense ratios. You will find that different types of funds will have different expense ratios, but that funds the have similar investment objectives should have similar ratios. And diversify as in the type of mutual funds. Unless you are approaching retirement, I personally would have the majority of my money in growth stock funds, perhaps some in an international fund and a low percentage in a stable high income bond fund. Morningstar is an excellent resource. It shows all this information and will give you additional information such as high risk/low risk; high return/low return.

Same as what those guys say but I'll give you a couple things to check out:
I'm watching
PRBLX
ACG
JAEIX
NMO
Done well for me:
FEIRX (up about 30%)
NIVAX (up about 60%)
DOM (Stock)
BPT (Stock)
etrade owns a site called clearstation (The Intelligent Investment Community) and they have a recommend game where you get to invest $10,000 in any stock - it's a lotta fun I've been going it for a number of years - I used to be in the top five until they changed the rules from being rewarded on investing vs trading - so now the guys doing a lot of profitable trades rule and the guys that buy and hold - are in the dumps. Right now I have about 26 purchased valued at $353,000.
I'm Cornhusker if you decide to check it out.

Here's a few screen prints of portoflios I put together some time ago
Click here you may need to click to enlarge when explorer gives you the expand symbol.

Thanks

I'm 21.

I started with 4000 an year ago and made 1500 off of it so far.

I switched to mutual funds because doing the research on my own is taking too much time.

I put all my money in the fund above but will probably invest in another vanguard fund (probably a large cap growth one) before the 15th. (I can add another 3000 to my rothIRA and I really would like to retire a multimillionaire).

From my research so far, the vanguard funds seem to be one of the ones with the least overhead, best success rate and best option for starting investors.

But my research wasn't very extensive. I was just wondering if there were anyother funds you know of with a good success rate and a very low overhead (percent that goes into management).

Centroles you are very smart to start now. Many people do not think about it so young. The advantage you have due to reinvesting is huge. The earlier you start the greater the return. If you work somewhere that they offer a 401K, take full advantage. Many companies also match from 50% - 100% of what you contribute, that is free money. If you can afford it, contribute up to the legal limit. Your young age is a great advantage. I think you are on the right track. The only thing I would suggest is to put your money in a couple of other funds. You may want to consider a small amount in an international fund. Should help you out during times of fluctuating exchange rates.

Off the top of my head, I cannot give you a good suggest, but I have heard that vanguard has a very good group of mutual funds. The group of funds I work currently and have worked on in the past, I would not suggest for your circumstances. Some insurance related funds, and others with somewhat high ratios and fees.

Centroles, First of all, my congratulations to you for being a responsible 21 year old investor. Most do not think about retirement until it's too late to take advantage of the long-term growth cycle of investments. Just one suggestion: Dollar average your investments rather than throwing a huge amount into one fund all at once. Dollar averaging will save you from investing at the highest level of any fund. It's the long-term effect that's imortant, and if you look at any long-term graph of the DOW or Nasdaq, you'll see how it continues to grow in an upward trend. If you look at what's happened just this year in four months, you'll see the ups and downs of the market. If you had dollar averaged your investment, you'll be ahead by about 2-3 hundred points.

As an idea. One of the local radio stations here in Boston has a good program on Saturday afternoons and Sunday monrings that covers personal investing. It's called "The Money Show" and you can call in and they do a quick assesment and make recommendations based on your spefic circumstances.

The hosts are very good and will give a few specifics and lots of general advice. Recommending mutal funds is a staple on the show.

You can either call into the show or e-mail them with questions. (Their e-mail addy is at the bottom of the link above.)

fishin, Most of us do not have the time or inclination to spend much time managing individual stock investments. Mutual funds fills that gap, but we still need to rate mutual funds on their past performance. That's the reason why I recommend looking at funds for the past five years (which includes the past several years when most funds took a beating), and ten years (for the longer term performance). We still have the responsibility to follow up on a regular basis to keep our allocations balanced to satisfy our investment goals. Most of us understand what that means; allows more risks when young, and less risk when we reach close to retirement age.

I understand all of that c.i. That's exactly the type of info the people on the show give and why I recommended it.

I have always been fairly cautious. I have therefore favored index funds, especially those of Vanguard (my IRA), with a smaller portion in T.Rowe Price and Janus. I think it's important for the average non-expert to diversify and purchase only true no-load funds in companies with low fees and a good long term record. I'm retired now, but I've failed to shift enough money from stock to balanced and bond funds. I keep putting it off. Good solid advice, C.I..

The main things i look for are past performance (a 5 year annualized return ) without a large variance (big variance in returns = more risk)
and look at the cost - for every mutual fund with a load (front or back) there is one just as good without one. I feel Load funds are a rip off.

Some Decent fund families that fit this criteria:

Dodge and Cox
American Century
Tweedy Browne
Julius Baer

I currently have 25 investment funds about half of which are indexed funds and over the past 24 months have returned 8.4% in aggregrate having switched from growth to earnings funds over the past few years. 50% earnings, 25% growth funds currently (plus 25% annuity funds. for security of mind)

Centroles, I'lll provide one more comment. Our son started an investment program when he was about 16 years old. I let him invest his college fund. When he attended college, I paid for all his expenses, and he didn't need to spend from any of his investments. He's carried that through while he served in the US Air Force for 13 years. He resigned a few years ago, and got his masters at the University of Texas. He's not wealthy, but is better off than most in his age group. Starting early has its benefits.

lol I just made that pitch to a new kid at work c.i. This is his first real job out of college and while I was doing all his insurance paperwork and explaining benefits and such I got into the 401K plan a little. He can't contribute to it until he's been there for a year but I told him that he should start investing "something" now - with his very first paycheck.

He was a little puzzled but I found a quickie calculator in the web and showed him what investing $25 every 2 weeks could do for him in the long run. You don't have to start with much when you're young. Start with a little every few weeks and increase it a little bit every time you get a pay raise and it works a whole lot better than waiting and trying to catch time.

The young have the benefit of time.

fishin', Most young people don't understand the principles compounding. When they can see a chart with 30 years of compounding, they'll see the advantages, but most kids don't think that way.

I did a quick calculation on anybody saving $25 every week for thirty years earning 5 percent. It's worth over $86,000 at the end of 30 years.

Very interesting.