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<title><![CDATA[RiverSource Balanced A]]></title>
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<title><![CDATA[Not a good argument for mutual funds]]></title>
<link>http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Mutual_Funds_%28A_to_Z%29/Mutual_Funds_R/threadview?m=tm&amp;bn=46855&amp;tid=1&amp;mid=1&amp;tof=1&amp;off=1</link>
<description><![CDATA[Looking at the "growth" of this fund for all of the years that I've owned it (going back to IDS and the 1960s), I almost regret not simply investing in my mattress, or putting the money in a money market account.   If they're paying "stock pickers" to run this fund, any one of us could probably do well enough to earn a single star from Morningstar.   At one time, around 1980, this was one of the several largest funds in the business--IDS Mutual, it was called--but the managers ran it into the ground with horrendous stock picks and poor decisions.   It appears that the Ameriprise people are presently going with the most conservative line and hoping to end up in the middle, possibly getting a 2nd or 3rd star from Morningstar at some future date.   The mix is practically half and half, bonds and stocks.   The stocks are the most "obvious" blue chips--the first ones that come to mind--Exxon, Bank of America, IBM, etc.--when constructing a portfolio of blue chippers paying dividends.

What's the argument for paying for this fund (the expense fees are pretty heavy along with the sales charge--check them out at Finra.org)?   You're better off buying the shares yourself, having the dividends reinvested, and in case one of the stocks tanks (as in the case of Bank of America, which has seen the bottom fall out), be able to get out of the stock immediately instead of waiting for the crew to readjust the sluggish cargo load and right the qwagmired ship.

This fund has cost anyone who's held since 1980 and before, not even coming close to keeping up with inflation during the Reagan "pro-capitalist years" or the Clinton "go-go internet years."   Only in the very last year, with the pitiful Bush market, have they come close to staying even with the S&P 500.   But buy and hold is a strategy that has cost the investors in banks and the financials   heavily, and now even the overpriced oil stocks have hit the skids.   At least they have the sense not to be fully invested in the market, so maybe they'll begin to look better than other "balanced funds."   But the American small investor is the loser, and there's no reason to see things get better under McCain.   Even Dennis Hopper should know that "financial planning" makes no sense if the country's planning requires more dollars be sent to Iraq and to China (to pay off the interest on the money we borrowed from them to sustain the war based on mythical, non-existent WMD's).   FSD (financial self-destruction) has been the result of that witch hunt.]]></description>
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<pubDate>Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:20:38 GMT</pubDate>
<author><![CDATA[caponsacchi]]></author>
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