Review of a well-researched no load mutual funds investment book

One of the best books on investing that would enable you to cut your portfolio investing costs, lessen your investing risk, and enhance your retained investment returns

My article reviews a book which is one of the most useful personal investment books I have found. Titled Low Cost Mutual Funds and ETFs, this investment book addresses what is the largest challenge that many personal investors face: investment expenses which are excessive and unwarranted.

Also, this book provides an easy to understand description concerning what really works in individual investing methods, plus it summarizes solutions that are easy to implement. Using the book you can easily locate the lowest cost index mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.

The book provides tables with 212 low cost no load passively managed mutual funds in 30 separate asset categories, and it provides lists of 208 low cost index exchange-traded funds in 27 different categories. These tables were screened using objective methods supported by investment research that are discussed in this useful investment book. These index mutual fund and exchange-traded fund lists give a full choice of low cost no load mutual fund and ETF alternatives for any investor.

This carefully researched book with over 250 pages was written by Larry Russell, who is an experienced financial advisor from Pasadena, CA who holds degrees from Stanford University, Brandeis University, and MIT.

A huge problem with investments: The great majority of individual investors pay way too much in investing expenses and fees and receive way too little in return for these costs

Charging individual investors dearly for its purportedly superior insight, the great majority of the financial services industry actually just feeds on the assets and returns of individual investors without contributing any net value. In brief, you are just an investment industry revenue and profit center.

The financial industry makes the investment process unnecessarily and overly complicated, by overwhelming the market with complicated investment services and products which are outrageously costly. Then, the financial services industry provides biased and self-interested “free advice” on selecting investments, which is the most expensive “free advice” investors will receive in their lives. If they do not seek low cost securities products and services, investors are far more likely to be sold these excessively costly investment services and products.

Unwarrantly expensive investment products and services are the real enemy that you face when you invest. The more of your money that you permit the investment industry take from you, the less you will have in retirement. Keep your money. You do not have to participate in this unfair game.

Using this Low Cost Mutual Funds and ETFs investment book you can quickly reduce your portfolio investing expenses, lower your portfolio risk, and increase your net portfolio earnings. Lowering your investment expenses to the bone is the most powerful investment strategy available to you.

For decades, low cost no load index mutual funds and more recently very low cost exchange-traded funds have delivered better returns accounting for risk. Once costs plus taxes are taken into account, individual investors simply keep a greater part of their portfolio return. Moreover, investors who buy lowest cost investment funds reduce investment risk, expend much less exertion, avoid sales pressure, experience much less trouble, and reduce time spent.

You can invest by yourself directly with investment funds, and you can a better job of it. All you need is correct investment information. For some absolutely straight information on what really works regarding individual investing get this book.

About the no load index funds and ETFs in this investment book

The investment book provides tables with 212 lowest cost mutual funds and 208 low cost index exchange-traded funds in 30 and 27 separate asset classes, respectively. Listed no load mutual funds and index ETFs have no sales loads, the lowest management fees, and no marketing charges. In addition, included index funds have substantially lower investment portfolio turnover which is associated with reduced securities trading costs.

The tables of mutual funds and ETFs cover:

• US, global, and international multi-cap, large-cap, mid-cap, and small-cap stock funds with low costs with growth and value equity investment funds
• Global, international, and US long-, intermediate-, and short-term corporate, treasury, government, inflation protected, and municipal bond investment funds with low costs
• Money funds and real estate funds with low costs

With this book you can select a lowest cost portfolio which is broadly diversified by investment asset class and geography

Savings from this excellent no load index funds and ETFs investment book

Dependent upon the size of your investment portfolio, this modestly priced personal finance book would allow you to save hundreds or thousands of dollars each and every year. When you can reduce your total investing fees and costs by just a single percent of assets each year and you have an investment portfolio of $10,000, your investment cost reduction will be $100 annually. With $50,000, you will save $500 per year. With $100,000, you will save $1,000 annually. Since total annual investment expenses and fees for the typical individual investor are between 2% and 2 & 1/2% a year, most investors would realistically save two percent each year Therefore, these yearly investment savings on total fees and expenses savings would even be double a year — year after year after year.

Some might think: “Sure that is what I might save, but if I pay higher fees, I would receive better investment returns.” Sorry, but the research clearly will not support paying more in costs. These are some typical financial research quotations out of the book:

• “Combined, 109 of these 111 comparisons indicated that higher bond expenses meant lower returns to investors.”
• “The annual under performance of the broker-sold funds at $4.6 billion dollars is before the payment of $9.8 billion in 12b-1 fees and other distribution fees.”
• “Uniformly across the various countries …, when the time horizon increases active investment strategies are increasingly inferior.”

If you actually are convinced that you can get better investment return, when you pay increased fees instead of lower costs, then you really should get and read this valuable investing book!

About the author’s background

This investing book, by Larry Russell was written with his objective and in-depth knowledge concerning what really works regarding personal finance and investing methods. He is a knowledgeable and experienced retirement financial planner in the Pasadena and Los Angeles, CA area. Larry’s goal is “to improve people’s knowledge and increase their capability in managing their own personal financial and investing affairs.”

Larry is the publisher of extensive personal finance articles on the Internet and the designer and developer of sophisticated home lifetime financial planning software. Across decades, he has gained broad expertise in finance, investments, economics, taxation, accounting, probability, statistics, software development, and web technologies. Over 25 years, he worked as an executive and manager in the computer software industry at companies like Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems.

Retiring from the software industry in 2001, Larry started a systematic look at the academic research literature that affected investments and finance for his personal interest. To make this financial research literature more accessible for individual investors, during 2003, he began to write and publish finance and investments research summaries on his longest running investment strategy education site, The Skilled Investor. From 2003, he has authored and published over 1,000 investments and personal finance articles on his six investing and personal finance websites. A portion of this investment ebook has been based on these web articles, and hyperlinks supplied in this ebook help you to explore Larry’s investments and personal finance sites.

In addition in 2003, he began to develop sophisticated and individually customizable home lifetime financial plan software. This investments and personal finance software application, VeriPlan, was developed initially to be a personal finance decision support tool set for advisory customers. In 2006, he started to design and develop a standalone version of VeriPlan which do-it-yourself individuals can use by themselves. This VeriPlan application is now the most automated and individually customized do-it-yourself life cycle retirement planning tools software that is available on the public market for well under competing investing and personal finance software tools.

(Investments book cover photograph from Alan Cleaver available on Flickr.com)