Benchmarking: Equity Mutual Funds and UITF

(source: Bloomberg)

When you are given a dozen eggs and inspect them closely, you will eventually see they are not of the same size (and sometimes shape) even though they came from the same poultry farm.

If you need a more human example: when you see a set of siblings, you will realize they are different from each other even though they came from the same mother and father.

Same with equity mutual funds and equity UITF, even though they are invested in the same stock market (same parent so to speak), the result of each fund differs from the others. You may compare them one by one... but you can also use just one "ruler" to measure all of them -- the Philippine Stock Exchange Index or PSEi.

Graphs after the jump.

Double your money in a mutual fund

"You could double your money by investing P5,000 a month for five years in mutual fund."

Sounds like a scam or hyped-selling? For some, it may.

But this is a real investment in the Save and Learn Equity Fund (SALEF) of First Metro Asset Management, Inc.

In mutual funds, there are no guaranteed returns. But historical figures from 2008 to 2012 suggest you could actually double your money, not just by lump-sum investing, but also by peso cost averaging.

(Note: lump-sum investing is not advisable for a fund that invests in volatile markets like equity funds. Please understand the risk and your risk appetite before investing.)

If you redeemed all your shares today, you would have a whooping 102% return of investment!

How? Read on.