The Fund LibraryBest of the Net
The Fund LibraryDateline: 07/16/99
The Fund Library has been around since 1995 and has been getting better and better with age. From its humble origins as 12 pages of text, it has grown to over 10,000 pages of information on individual funds and mutual fund investing in general. In the last year the site has grown particularly impressive.
The front page of the site features a menu bar at the top, a column at the right with daily, weekly and monthly features, and the two column wide What's New section down the left side. Here you'll find the latest in mutual fund news as well as coming events, articles and more.
Garth Turner's weekly Investment Television program is archived in Real Video at the site in handy segments. Every Saturday the program airs live at the Fund Library at Noon Eastern time as well as on ATV in the Maritimes, ONTV in Ontario and VTV in Vancouver. (See schedule for times and channels.)
Speaking of media, you'll also find Gordon Pape's popular Mutual Fund Minute radio broadcasts here in Real Audio, as well as the two hour live broadcast of Canada's Money Show with Paul Bates every Sunday morning from 7:00-9:00 AM EST. Again there are archives of recent segments.
Daily features include a mutual fund company Website of the Day and the TD Fund News Network broadcast in Real Video.
Contributing writers include the entertaining and informative Kevin Cork, aka the Screaming Capitalist (I love that name!) and C.I.'s Bill Sterling with his monthly Sterling Perspective on global economics.
Going through the items on the main menu bar at the top of the page, Mutual Fund Companies lets you select any fund company in Canada to get a wealth of information on the company and its funds. You can download fund specific brochures in French or English, check current prices, historical performance, rankings against other funds in its category, annualized performance, risk assessment and ratings by several fund analysts including Gordon Pape and The Financial Post's Jonathon Chevreau.
Clicking on any individual fund in the listing gives you a pop-up box with daily prices for the past week, a graph of the fund's performance for 3 months, one year or two years (your choice), compound and annualized returns, a list of the fund's top holdings and analyst opinions.
The compounded performance figures are the most extensive available anywhere and include two year, four year, seven year and twenty year performance as well as the more common ones you'll find at other websites. On the downside, they are a little slower than their crosstown rival in updating their figures each month.
Next on the menu bar is the Learning Centre. As the name implies, you'll find everything you need to know about mutual funds here, plus a lot more. There's also an extensive link library.
Moving along we find an Advisor Centre that includes info on how to choose an advisor, an extensive collection of advisor profiles that includes their work experience and education, and a list of upcoming financial seminars.
There's also a discussion forum, a bookstore and my favorite section - the Fund Workshop. Here registered users (it's free) can set up their personal portfolios online. You can create multiple portfolios which you can track online. You can have reports emailed as often as daily if you like.
A powerful feature is their Fund Filter which lets you select funds by criteria of your choosing, including performance, MERs, risk and RRSP eligibility. You can name and save filters you might use frequently for handy use later.
You can also research historic fund prices for specific dates or time frames or you can check the value of your portfolio on a specific date past. You want to check the daily prices for AGF American Growth for last year? You got 'em! Or do a graph.
The Fund Library claims to be the most comprehensive website devoted to the mutual fund industry, and they may well be. Every fund sold in Canada, even the most obscure, is listed here. The educational resources are abundant. The commentary is knowledgeable and up to date. And the tools include unique features you won't find anywhere else.
This is a superb site and my pick as Best of the Net for July.
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June 1999 Best of the Net - last month's article looked at the new globeinvestor.com site.
07/14/99 - 6 Month
Mutual Fund Report
Our semi-annual report on funds that made
our Power Performers list for the last six months.
07/12/99 - E-commerce
& Convergence
Our weekly Internet Update looks at Microforum and Rogers
Communications as well as listing the movers and shakers among
Internet stocks for the previous week.
07/09/99 - Trading
on Volatility: Case Study # 2 - Microsoft
Our second case study into active trading of a particular stock
gives quite different results than our first one did.
07/07/99 - Trading
on Volatility: Case Study # 1 - Barrick Gold
We try out a method of trading stocks based on their fluctuations
from recent highs and lows to see if it will improve our profits.
07/05/99 - Internet
Update: Recent High Flyers
Ten stocks on our Internet indexes gained over 10% last week. We
profile two of them and take a look at Nortel Networks as well.
The Daily: Have you checked out The Daily? Links to daily Canadian business and investment news and commentary.
Bulletin Board: Got an opinion? Why not post it on our Bulletin Board!