Making Headlines

In Kiplinger’s Annual Fund Rankings, Reporter Manuel Schiffres sums up the bad news in 2008: “It was an ugly year for fund investors. Most stock funds bled red ink as share prices plunged because of worries that falling housing prices and a growing number of mortgage defaults would destabilize the nation's financial system....” But Schiffres goes on to say that the key to success in 2008 has been to “hold funds that were stuffed with, well, stuff” - meaning natural resources “stuff”. He comments on several different mutual funds asset categories, and gives The Royce Funds high marks in both the small- and mid-sized value and blend categories, opining: “The Royce family specializes in undervalued small-company stocks; all of its offerings on this list are good choices.” Royce Opportunity Fund (RYPNX) gets special mention for its “peppier approach.”

Kiplinger's Personal Finance looked at “the biggest and best-performing mutual funds in the world”, evaluating 2,923 domestic funds and 572 foreign funds based on the one-, three-, five-, ten- and 20-year performance results through June 30, 2008. Kiplinger’s left out funds that are less than a year old, that require a minimum investment of $100,000 or more, that are sold only to special groups or institutional investors, or that are only available through IRAs. When a fund has many share classes that are sold with different fee structure but have essentially the same returns, Kiplinger’s lists only the oldest share class that is open to new investors.