How To Get Up-to-Date Mutual Fund Information

Question: Does Nationwide provide information about the investment options including performance?  Is there a better place to get information about various mutual funds?

Answer: Let's answer your question about what Nationwide provides first.  Nationwide provides very up-to-date and useful information to participants via the Best of America Web page.   Simply sign into your account at www.bestofamerica.com and then click on the "Investments" tab.   You will get performance summaries through the end of the latest month and you can also access detailed profiles by clicking on the Adobe Acrobat icon next to the fund name.  These profiles will be updated quarterly and show major holdings of the funds; industry allocations; manager information and a few other items.  

However, we feel there are much better places on the Internet to get this kind of information.  The Internet is a phenomenal tool for educating yourself about mutual funds and for getting all of the latest data regarding funds (now numbering over 8,000).   Some of our personal favorites places are:  Morningstar; CBS MarketWatch; SmartMoney and Yahoo

Each of these has a place where you can insert a Ticker Symbol for the mutual fund  you are interested in.  If you do not know the ticker symbol, they each provide some sort of facility to allow you to look it up on-line.   Each of these is different, so you may want to give them all a trial run and see which one you like the best.  The Ticker Symbol lookup feature on Morningstar.com is very good.   Be careful!  You want to make sure you are using exactly the right Ticker Symbol.  Many funds have different share classes.  For example, the Ticker Symbol would be different for American Century Income and Growth Investors share class vs. the American Century Income and Growth Advisors share class.  There are only a few funds in the Nationwide program where different cases have different share classes.   If you have any confusion about your funds, call Pat Lanphier at Plan Design Consultants, Inc. at (650) 341-3322.   

Much of the information on Morningstar.com is free, but if you want even more information you can subscribe to their premium service (currently about $10 per month).  You will probably find you do not need the premium service.

Not only can you do a current look-up of mutual fund information, you can also maintain a "portfolio" of funds you are interested in tracking.  That way your Ticker Symbols are kept for you and you can find out what is going on with numerous funds with the click of a mouse.   See our related discussion about establishing Portfolio Tracking.

If you have questions about the above, please call Paul Carlson of Plan Design Consultants, Inc. at (650) 341-3322.