Last Updated on January 1, 2010 by stlplace
It’s that time again, the end of 2009 (and the decade of 2000s) means we can also look at the performance of mutual funds in past year/decade. The winner of US based mutual fund is CGM Focus fund, managed by Mr. Heebner, the fund’s manager since its 1997 launch. CGM Focus is a large cap growth fund with annualized total return of 18.2% in last 10 years (source: WSJ, Best Stock Fund of the the Decade: CGM Focus). Sounds pretty good, right?
Not really. According to MorningStar in the same article:
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Too bad investors weren’t around to enjoy much of those gains. The typical CGM Focus shareholder lost 11% annually in the 10 years ending Nov. 30, according to investment research firm Morningstar Inc.
These investor returns, also known as dollar-weighted returns, incorporate the effect of cash flowing in and out of the fund as shareholders buy and sell. Investor returns can be lower than mutual-fund total returns because shareholders often buy a fund after it has had a strong run and sell as it hits bottom.
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The gap between CGM Focus’s 10-year investor returns and total returns is among the worst of any fund tracked by Morningstar. The fund’s hot-and-cold performance likely widened that gap. The fund surged 80% in 2007. Investors poured $2.6 billion into CGM Focus the following year, only to see the fund sink 48%. Investors then yanked more than $750 million from the fund in the first eleven months of 2009, though it is up about 11% for the year through Tuesday.
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So in summary, two things:
1) The fund stated annualized return is NOT the same as rate of return for mutual fund investors;
2) Mutual fund investors typically “buy high, and sell low”.
I do have one question about the “gap”, fund manager claimed they made great return, while the average investor lose money, something does not connect: where did the money go? Now I am really suspicious of mutual fund industry.
Read more on rate of return from Wikipedia.