New Feature

Introducing the
Canadian Mutual Funds
Database of Key Links

Dateline: 06/21/99

There are a lot of resources available to research mutual funds on the Internet, but to get to them, you have to hop around from site to site and then navigate around inside those sites as well. And so we are launching a new feature here at Investing: Canada - our Database of Key Links. The front page of this index looks like the extract below:

Clicking on a particular fund company or fund group will bring up a page like the one between the red lines below:

@rgentum Mutual Funds

Daily NAVPS for all funds in this group
Globefund Profile
Fund Library Data
PALTrak Summaries
Sedar Data

As you can see, the page gives you the name and address of the company, its phone numbers, homepage and email address (the latter two linked for instant access) inside a yellow table.

Below the table is a collection of links with information on the company and its funds. The first is a link to the daily Net Asset Value Per Share list for the funds. In most cases this will be a link to a page on the company's own website. But where that is inconvenient - either the company website uses frames and the NAVPS page looks weird without the frames or does not link out of the unframed page - I've linked to the daily NAVPS as listed by GLOBEfund.

The next link is to the GLOBEfund Profile of the company. This gives the same basic information that is in my table and lists the funds of the company and links to the daily NAVPS table and recent news stories on the company in The Globe & Mail as well as to selected other links of interest.

But GLOBEfund isn't the only game in town. The excellent Fund Library also maintains extensive information on mutual funds. Which is the better mutual fund site is a matter of personal taste. Both are superb. The third link is to the Fund Library's table of the company's funds.

This table is similar to the GLOBEfund NAVPS table. Just as the names of the individual funds in a GLOBEfund table link to a profile on that individual fund, so do the ones in the Fund Library tables. But the latter profiles include some additional features not found in GLOBEfund.

Individual fund profiles at the Fund Library appear in pop-up boxes so you can return quickly to the main page. And each profile includes the daily prices for the past week and a table of the previous year's prices (GLOBEfund has them on a separate page). The compounded rates of return are given for more time frames including 2 years, 4 years, 7 years, 15 years and 20 years. And the Fund Library profile includes Calendar Year Returns and commentary from noted mutual fund pundits including Gordon Pape and the authors of The Fundline Advisor.

GLOBEfund and The Fund Library each have some things the other doesn't and each is worth checking out when researching a particular fund.

The fourth link is to the Pal TRAK index of the company's funds. Clicking on any particular fund name gives you some additional info, most notably the quartile rankings of the fund.

The final link is to SEDAR data on the fund company. SEDAR stands for System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval and is the databank of filings to Canadian Securities Administrators of mutual funds and publicly traded companies. Here you'll find press releases, quarterly and annual reports, prospectuses and other legal documents.

To launch this endeavor I've included 20 fund groups. If you check the Pal TRAK listing of fund companies you'll find there are around 180 of them. Many are small or privately held fund companies like the Canadian Dental Association's funds or the IOF Foresters funds. But eliminating those, there are still a lot of fund companies for me to add to the list. I'll be adding the major companies first and gradually adding the smaller, less well known companies later.

At the rate of ten new funds a week it will take me to the end of the summer to finish them off. Meanwhile, I've included a table of Search Pages at the bottom of the list so you can research fund companies not yet added to the list. The table is reproduced below:

If there are any fund companies you would like to see added to the list quickly, email me and I'll try and get it done within the week. Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? Why not post them on our Bulletin Board! Or email me!

E-mail me!

Other Links of Interest

Mutual Fund Net Links - My collection of Net Links on mutual funds.

Fund Monitor - The website of mutual fund pundit Duff Young.

The Fund Counsel - The website of economists and mutual fund pundits Levi Folk and Richard Webb.

i|money Mutual Funds Centre - This all encompassing personal finance website for Canadians includes an excellent mutual funds section as well.

Quicken Mutual Fund Centre - Quicken, the accounting software people, also maintain an excellent Canadian mutual funds site.

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