One of our mutual fund partners, Dimensional Fund Advisors has completed their annual study of the US mutual funds available to investors. Their findings are shared below in the video. DFA suggests that when selecting a mutual fund, one must look beyond past performance and instead look to the fund's cost of investing as well as how the fund was managed. DFA looked at 5, 10 and 15 year time periods and found the % of funds which survive and beat the market decreases exponentially over time. This is one of the many reasons why at FIRST Financial Group, we carefully look at how our mutual funds selections are managed in addition to searching for funds with low fees. Past performance in mutual fund category is no guarantee of future results and in fact, many times high past performance is unsustainable. Proper mutual fund selection is key to a successful low cost portfolio.

As always, please contact our office if you have any questions about this blog post or your account with us.