Lux Investing

Is Amana Trust Growth a good mutual fund to start investing with?

Is Amana Trust Growth a good mutual fund to start investing with? i want to start to invest on mutual fund? how do i calculate the return? there is 3 month, 1 yr, 3 yr options? does that mean i can only hold it 3 years maximum? thank you

Public Comments

1. The return options that you are looking at are historical past returns. You are only selecting if you want to look at the return for the past 3 months, 1 year and 3 years. It says nothing about how long you need to hold the mutual fund. There are two basic kinds of mutual fund fees that you should consider. There are loads and there are management fees. Loads are charges that you either pay up front when buying (i.e. front end sales fees) or when you sell the mutual fund (i.e. back end sales fees). Management fees are what you pay the company every year to run the mutual fund. Often times, the same mutual fund will have different classes where you can choose whether you want to pay a front or back end load. There are also mutual funds that are no load. Some companies will also charge another fee if you sell a mutual fund you have hold for only a short time. Bottom line, look at the prospectus to see how the mutual fund company will charge you. I am a strong supporter of exchange traded funds (ETFs), which are mutual funds with low management costs, no loads, that trade like stocks. Look at the American Stock Exchange Site (www.amex.com)...click on the ETF tab. One ETF that you might want to consider is the SPY, which tracks the performance of the S&P500 index, or the QQQQ, which tracks the NASDAQ 100 index...there are a lot of others to choose. Good luck!
2. The annual expense ratio is a bit high (but still under the "too much level") but the returns for the past 1,3,5, & 10 years are good. Good 5 star rating. Very good turnover ratio at only 5% so low trading costs. And with low $250 initial minimum, yes, if you have less than $2,500.00 to invest, it is a good low minimum beginner fund.
3. This is an interesting fund. Poltically Correct version is Socially conscinse fund officially its called the Muslim Fund. Reason being it doesn't invest in sin companies tobbacco, military or anything like that. I used to own a similar fund (Pax World/PAXWX) on a comparison basis Amana blows Pax out of the water except for the expense ratio and yield (pax has one) I don't see anything wrong with one ad you can hold it for as long as you like. Paxwx was a winner for me and i'm pretty sure AMAGX will serve you well. Go ahead and buy it but don't put all of your money into it.