American Funds Dilemma

[MRG]

AMCPX 1/12/88-1/11/18 $10k grew to over $242k. S&P grew to $212k. AGTHX, another growth fund, grew to $323k.

American Funds used to claim their funds beat their benchmarks over 90% of the time over 10 year periods.

They're one of the few active managers I use.

They have a good reputation, after the initial loads(waived over xyz assets) their fees are slightly lower than the industry average for managed funds.

They have a great customer service and support.

 

[yakers]

American Funds are the only company I would consider paying a load. They have done well for a fraternal group where I was treasurer. I inherited the investment and saw no need to change it even though I am a Vanguard fan. The question to ask is if I had $$$ today would I buy this fund (ignore the 6% you paid as a sunk cost). You *may* want to stay if you like the fund/s and it suits your AA.
If you want to manage your portfolio yourself then Vanguard & Fidelity have good, low cost index funds. How much do you want to trade? How much do you want to pay for the comfort of a familiar broker or a brick & morter?

 

[ERD50]

American Funds are the only company I would consider paying a load. ...

I got curious, and plugged amcpx and agthx in here (Total Return Charts):

PerfCharts | Free Charts | StockCharts.com

I set the slider to 1260 days (~ 5 years of trading days). If you run the slider back and forth, AGTHX is often ahead of SPY, going from the start of their data (JAN1999) up to ~the 2003~ 2008 band, then mostly even, jostling for position.

I would not pay a load for that, though it has done well in general. I personally have less faith that an active fund can continue that performance, than I do that a broad-based index will stay very close to its index, and that's good enough for me.

OP will likely do well with either.

-ERD50