Secondary sources of fund information

Money Digest, Oct, 2002

While there is a large amount of information on the Internet, there are still many industry sources, magazines, books and software available containing mutual fund information.

Industry sources

IFIC, the Investment Funds Institute of Canada (www.ific.ca), is the industry organization for Canadian mutual fund companies. Free brochures explaining mutual funds to beginning investors are available. You can get copies of its latest booklets by contacting IFIC, 151 Yonge St., 5th Floor, Toronto, ON M5C 2W7. Phone (416) 363-2158. Fax (416) 861-9937.

As an industry regulator, the Mutual Fund Dealers Association (www.mfda.ca) is responsible for regulating all sales of mutual funds by its members in Canada. The goal of the MFDA is to establish rules that will give investors a level playing field and a feeling of protection no matter where they buy their funds.

Print information

Newspapers

Plenty of information on mutual funds can be obtained by simply reading one of the following two dailies: The Globe and Mail or National Post. Both papers track mutual fund prices on a daily basis. However, daily tracking offers very little insight into the functioning of the fund.

On the third week of every month The Globe and Mail and National Post provide information on the performance of mutual funds over different time periods, generally one year, three years, five years and 10 years.

As we noted earlier, it is not just the compound performance over the years that matters, but whether the fund has performed consistently. Twice a year, the two publications noted above list the performance of all funds on an annual basis for the previous 10 or more years.

Books on mutual funds

Several books are available for the beginning investor, such as Ranga Chand's Getting Started in Mutual Funds. Books that explain mutual funds and/or evaluate them annually include Gordon Pape's 2003 Buyer's Guide to Mutual Funds, Jonathan Chevreau's Smart Funds (updated annually), Ranga Chand's Top 50 Mutual Funds (updated annually), Riley Moynes and Nick Fallon's Top Funds (updated annually) and What Every Canadian Should Know About Mutual Funds by the Investor Learning Centre.

These books explain most of what you need to know about mutual funds. The Year 2003 editions of most of these books will be available (when published) from Investors Association of Canada at a discount.

Mutual fund magazines and newsletters

Money Digest (www.iac.ca) lists the details of funds that performed well in different categories over the previous 12 months.

MPL Communications (416-869-1177) publishes the Mutual Fund Reporter and the Canadian Mutual Fund Adviser (both are bi-weekly), Gordon Pape publishes Mutual Funds Update Newsletter (www.gordonpape.com).

Fund company addresses and phone numbers

Southam's Fund Profiler and Mutual Fund Sourcebook provide the addresses and phone numbers of all the fund companies tracked. Another source is Money Digest's annual resource directory in the July issue. A limited number of copies of last July's directory is still available. The cost is $5 per copy ($12.95 for non-members), including GST and postage.

Mutual fund software

Similar to online tracking of mutual funds, fund software has made the evaluation of mutual funds on a number of criteria such as long-term performance, performance in relation to market benchmarks, and performance in relation to other funds in a given category very easy to accomplish.

Southam Fund Profiler by Southam's the Business Information Group is the most extensive package available. There's more to it than just the covering of mutual fund performance for more than 4,200 funds (going back 20 years). Other data include: daily pricing downloads, fund statistics, fund ranking, fund fees and expenses, allocation by sector of a fund's holding, and manager performance stats and information. For more information, contact Southam Mutual Fund Group, 240 Duncan Mill Road, Suite 300, Toronto, Ontario, M3B 1Z4. Phone (416) 445-5534. Fax (416) 445-4504; www.fundprofiler.com.

Morningstar Research Inc. still provides updates for mutual fund analytical programs BellCharts and PalTrak for Windows. Both these programs are easy-to-use and calculate weighted and simple averages for the selected funds.