American Funds Dilemma

[harley]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Murf2 Hope I don't highjack the OP's thread but I am in a similar situation and have a question or two. From the answers the OP has gotten, I take it I can hold an American Funds fund at Vanguard, correct? How can I determine what the expense ratio would be and as far as the front end loader, would that be applied again when the fund was moved? Thanks Murf

Correct. You can hold an American Funds fund at Vanguard.

The expense ratio for a fund is the expense ratio for that fund. It would be the same for an American Funds fund at Vanguard as it is at Merrill. The expense ratio is listed for all funds on their prospectus.

If you have Vanguard (or whoever) transfer the fund from Merrill, there wouldn't be any cost for that, no re-applied load. Now, if you sold them at Merrill, then transferred the money to Vanguard, then bought them again (why would you, though?), then the front load would be re-applied. I think.

The advice here is to have Vanguard pull the funds over from Merrill. Then you can sell them if you want, and buy relatively similar but much lower expense funds from VG. If the funds are in a tax advantaged account, I would consider that a no brainer. If they are in taxable, I probably wouldn't incur the tax penalty to save the difference in expenses.

[Murf2]

Thanks harley!

[augam]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bw5972 Always curious how we measure to arrive at the "... and did okay" evaluation. What was the original investment balance 30 years ago before any load costs? A straight S&P fund from 1987 to 2017 would have grown as follows: Initial Invest. Total in 2017 10,000 => 163,280.96 50,000 => 816,404.80 These are with NO additional investment. Did the American Funds perform okay against this metric?

definitely

[gcgang]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bw5972 Always curious how we measure to arrive at the "... and did okay" evaluation. What was the original investment balance 30 years ago before any load costs? A straight S&P fund from 1987 to 2017 would have grown as follows: Initial Invest. Total in 2017 10,000 => 163,280.96 50,000 => 816,404.80 These are with NO additional investment. Did the American Funds perform okay against this metric?

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.

[imokurok]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gayl I have an advisor @ Schwab .... everyone there does and either we can primarily self direct our investments with his input or we can utilize him greater regarding which Investments to get. I get an annual review. I don't need more than that. I'm assuming the Fidelity is the same. And for some weird reason I still prefer brick-and-mortar to online only access

+1

[MRG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gcgang 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]

Quote:

Originally Posted by yakers 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