Monday, February 16, 2004
HoustonChronicle.com - Mutual funds grab cash from investors with barrage of fees: "Mutual funds grab cash from investors with barrage of fees
Mutual funds are making money for investors again. They never stopped making money for others.
Stock pickers, accountants, distributors, transfer agents, brokers, advertisers, attorneys, custodians and others suck steadily at the $7 trillion inside mutual funds.
The drain continues through good markets and bad.
Investors' accounts drip fees through so many cracks that the typical fund owner probably doesn't realize how much he or she pays, who gets the money and how it affects returns."
No load funds...
Mutual funds are making money for investors again. They never stopped making money for others.
Stock pickers, accountants, distributors, transfer agents, brokers, advertisers, attorneys, custodians and others suck steadily at the $7 trillion inside mutual funds.
The drain continues through good markets and bad.
Investors' accounts drip fees through so many cracks that the typical fund owner probably doesn't realize how much he or she pays, who gets the money and how it affects returns."
No load funds...
L.A. Daily News - Business: "Tax rates dropped last January, but most taxpayers have received only half of the cuts coming to them. That means many of them can expect a bigger refund or a smaller tax bill when they figure out their 2003 tax return this year.
The tax law enacted last May dropped tax rates across the board and removed some of the 'marriage penalty' built into the structure of marginal tax rates, which can cause married couples to pay more tax than they would as two singles.
Nearly everyone benefited from an expansion of the lowest, 10 percent bracket to $7,000 for single people and $14,000 for married couples. The law also expanded the 15 percent bracket for married couples to twice that of singles. Married couples now pay the same amount of tax on income within the bottom two rates as two singles.
The law also lowered the higher marginal rates ahead of schedule and made the change effective Jan. 1, 2003. The higher rates are now 25 percent, 28 percent, 33 percent and 35 percent."
The tax law enacted last May dropped tax rates across the board and removed some of the 'marriage penalty' built into the structure of marginal tax rates, which can cause married couples to pay more tax than they would as two singles.
Nearly everyone benefited from an expansion of the lowest, 10 percent bracket to $7,000 for single people and $14,000 for married couples. The law also expanded the 15 percent bracket for married couples to twice that of singles. Married couples now pay the same amount of tax on income within the bottom two rates as two singles.
The law also lowered the higher marginal rates ahead of schedule and made the change effective Jan. 1, 2003. The higher rates are now 25 percent, 28 percent, 33 percent and 35 percent."
Reuters | Latest Financial News / Full News Coverage: "There's something about red, white and blue balloons that puts Wall Street in a Happy-Days-Are-Here-Again kind of a mood. Election years typically are good for the stock market, and they are even better when incumbents are running for reelection.
They are better still when incumbents get reelected, reports Jeff Hirsch, a stock market historian and editor of The Stock Trader's Almanac, a calendar that charts the seasonal ebbs and flows of Wall Street dollars.
All this, however, does not mean you can time your investments to the weekly Tuesday primaries. It's more likely that you can predict the November win by how the market is doing as we get closer to Election Day. "
They are better still when incumbents get reelected, reports Jeff Hirsch, a stock market historian and editor of The Stock Trader's Almanac, a calendar that charts the seasonal ebbs and flows of Wall Street dollars.
All this, however, does not mean you can time your investments to the weekly Tuesday primaries. It's more likely that you can predict the November win by how the market is doing as we get closer to Election Day. "
