Brokerage Families of Mutual Funds

Updated 01/17/12

Virtually all major brokerages offer mutual fund trading. The offerings and terms differ widely (and wildly) among brokers. The two brokers that FastTrack follows are :

FastTrack Brokerage Families

Many mutual funds have begun offering their products through brokerages. The advantage to the investor is that the investor may trade from a Berger, to a Janus, to the Kaufmann fund simply by making a call to the brokerage without having to send paperwork with each fund company to redeem and open new accounts with the fund companies. This gives the small fund companies the opportunity to compete with Fidelity and the other industry giants who offer a broad spectrum of differing objective funds.

Fees and Loads

There are no rules. Ignore what you read in printed brochure . . . the programs change constantly and the enforcement of trading limits is lax. Some definitions:

• Fund Trading Program with Fee (FEE):
• No Transaction Fee (NTF):
  Most brokers will trade some funds with no fees at all. Generally, however, there is a limit of the number of such trades and there may be a required holding period. In most cases, you can trade NTF funds without restrictions if you pay a small fee. ($30-50 but check with your broker).
• Load funds charging 3-5% up front (LOD):
   Some of these quite good funds waive their load in some programs.
• Load Waived(LDW and NAV):
  These funds are usually load funds, but the load is waived for purchases in this brokers program. Funds are traded at NAV (Net asset Value).
• No Load Funds: Some brokers charge a small fee to buy some of these funds. Other no loads are also NTF funds.
• No Load with Transaction Fee (NLT):
  These no load funds can be purchased with a transaction fee. The fee is usually modest.
• Institutional (INS):
   These funds are offered to money managers. They might also be available to individuals willing to invest a large amount, generally, $25,000 to $250,000 up front.
• Intuitional Funds with trading fee and no trading restrictions (INN):
• Intuitional Funds no trading fee and no trading restrictions   (INR):
• Intuitional Funds no trading fee and trading restrictions        (INT):
• Intuitional Funds with trade fee and no trading restrictions   (INN):
• Back End Fees: In a few cases, the funds impose a percent of assets on a short-term redemption. Avoid these funds! The list constantly changes. We regret that we are unable to keep up with the the changes.
• Retail (RET): These are funds offered to individuals.
• Retail with not Trading Fee(RNT): These are funds offered to individuals.

The families are not characterized by transaction fee. We recommend that you ignore small transaction fees (not loads and redemption fees) and trade to the best funds available. Most FastTrackers trade $10,000 or more at a time and the trading fees are inconsequential.

Timeliness and Accuracy

This is an area we wish we could do better at. The offerings change constantly. Try as we might, we are NEVER exactly right. Your broker representative will have to struggle to get you correct information. If you disagree about a fee that you are being charged, argue. Often there are so many changes and so much confusion that  reps have the authority to waive certain fees.