Decoding Fund Brochures
Courtesy of Joshua M Brown, The Reformed Broker
I’ve been reading these things for 14 years, I think I finally got the hang of it. Feel free to use this as a reference guide during your next mutual, exchange traded or closed end fund selection.
Here’s the all-text version:
| Fund Brochure Says… | What It Really Means… |
| Ultra | Leveraged to the Hilt |
| Global Growth | We’ll Chase Stocks For You in Whichever Country is Most Overheated Right Now |
| Clean/ Green | A Basket of Government-Subsidized Experiments and Some Shares of GE |
| Deep Value | We Will Invest in Sewing Machine and Typewriter Companies |
| Premium | We Will Pay Up for High-Multiple Stocks/ You Will Pay Up in Fees |
| Socially Responsible | No Such Thing – All Corporations are Evil, Sucker |
| Diversified | We Will Basically Buy the Index and Go Golfing |
| Enhanced | Uses Exotic Derivatives You’ve Never Heard Of |
| Balanced | We Will Underperform Both the Bond AND the Stock Market. You’re Welcome. |
| Aggressive Growth | Collection of Chinese Online Gaming Stocks and New Jersey Biotech Startups |
| Lifecycle | We Can See 20 Years Into the Future, Only Putnam Knows When and How You Will Die |
| Moderate Allocation | Gutless Fund Manager |
| Quantitative | Manager Will Take Credit for Up Years, Blame Computers for Down Years |
| Endeavor/ Opportunities | We Will Throw Darts |
| Core | No Need to Spread it Out, Send Us Everything You Have |
