Devoted to understanding the basics and fundamentals of investing

I'd like to tell you about a resource for selecting mutual funds that is in most public libraries.  It is the Morningstar Reports.  It is usually kept at the reference desk.  Morningstar has a large staff of fund analysts who follow and rate mutual funds by a variety of criteria.  They assign a ranking to each of the funds they cover from one star to five stars (best).

Morningstar is a great place to find out all about funds and how they compare to each other.  You can find out about the fund manager and how long they have been there.  Research shows that the persistence in performance does depend in many cases on the fund manager and their tenure in the job.   You can find out about the style of the fund.  By style I mean growth, value, large cap, small cap, sector, etc.

You can find out about how different funds in the same style compare to each other and how funds of different styles compare.  They tell you how much risk the fund incurs to earn the return given.  Almost anything you want to know about a fund is available at Morningstar.  And if you find it in your library, it's free to you.  That's a pretty good deal. Morningstar also has started an individual stock analytic and recommendation service.  I don't know as much about it, but they have put a lot of effort behind it and you can get research reports on over 1,600 stocks by multiple analysts.

Morningstar has a website that has free services, articles and information on investing.  It is worth an occasional visit.

So, take a visit to your local library and check out Morningstar for a fun Saturday morning.