When Should You Fire Your Mutual Fund Manager?

My latest Washington Post column — it is in today’s print edition, but got lost on the way to being online — seems to have been recovered digitally.

The online version is (finally) published now:

“Most investors think long and hard about why they buy this fund or that — but they never think about when or why to sell.

They should.

This question involves huge sums of money. Ninety million individuals in the United States have $12 trillion invested in mutual funds. In terms of saving for retirement, mutual funds holdings account for 54 percent of 401(k)s and 47 percent of IRAs (in dollar terms). The 8,500 “Registered Investment Companies,” as these mutual funds are formally called, hold 27 percent of all outstanding stock of public companies in the United States.

Hence, most of your invested dollars in 401(k)s and IRAs are probably handled by a mutual fund manager.”

It was written to provoke some thought amongst main street investors who hardly ever think about those sell decisions.

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Source:
When should you fire your mutual fund manager?
Barry Ritholtz
Washington Post, May 8, 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/when-should-you-fire-your-mutual-fund-manager/2011/05/03/AFvl3kLG_story.html

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