Good Fund Hunting

Tip:

In the wake of the mutual fund scandalscame a raft of reforms, which shouldhave made it easier for physician-investorsto find trustworthy funds to puttheir money into. However, althoughfunds may no longer allow outright no-no's,such as market timing and tradesafter the closing bell, some funds stillindulge in borderline practices aimed attrapping unwary investors. Many fundscontinue to hawk past performance,despite the lessons learned in the dot-comdebacle, when hot funds went ice-coldalmost overnight. Excessive fees are alsocommon and often hidden from potentialbuyers in the form of back-end distributionfees on certain classes of fund shares.Look for true no-load funds withlow expense ratios coupled with solidlong-term performance.