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  • What’s Behind Fidelity’s Waiver of ETF Commissions?

    By Nathan Hale | Feb 8, 2010 | 0 comments

    Fidelity announced last week that they are eliminating commissions on 25 different iShares ETFs. While that's great news for investors, it also highlights the fact that Fidelity's fighting off growing irrelevance.

  • How Not to Invest in Mutual Funds, Part Two

    By Nathan Hale | Feb 1, 2010 | 2 comments

    In response to a great reader question to last week's post, I'm back to take another look at just why it is that the typical mutual fund investor earns returns that lag the returns of their mutual funds.

  • How Not to Invest in Mutual Funds

    By Nathan Hale | Jan 25, 2010 | 3 comments

    Thinking about shifting your asset allocation? Or adding a new asset class, convinced that it is the elixir your portfolio has been waiting for? Before you do, question your motivations. Failure to do so might result in the sort of results that the typical mutual fund investor had over the past decade.

  • Should You Sell Your S&P 500 Index Fund?

    By Nathan Hale | Jan 18, 2010 | 3 comments

    Because I fielded so many questions about it, I wanted to weigh in on my friend and colleague Allan Roth’s post last week on S&P 500 index funds. As I typically do, I agree wholeheartedly with Allan’s analysis. S&P 500 funds do not provide investors with exposure to the entire domestic stock market — it’s [...]

  • Why You Should Avoid the Decade’s Top Fund

    By Nathan Hale | Jan 8, 2010 | 3 comments

    During the past decade, the top-performing domestic equity fund has produced an annual return of nearly 18 percent. Sounds great, right? But you'll never believe how the fund's investors actually fared.

  • 2009’s New Funds Indicate a Banner Year in 2010

    By Nathan Hale | Jan 4, 2010 | 0 comments

    Asset gathering is the name of the game in the mutual fund industry, which is why new fund launches are designed to capitalize on whatever corner of the market has been hottest recently, often just as conditions begin to change. If this history is any guide, 2009's new funds indicate that 2010 will be a great year for stocks.

  • Predicting the Future is Hard, as These Forecasters Show

    By Nathan Hale | Dec 28, 2009 | 0 comments

    As we enter a new decade, don't be taken in by the host of experts who will trot out their predictions on how to beat the market over the next ten years. As the predictions made by experts in 1999 show, forecasting the future is a mug's game.

  • Morningstar’s Fund Managers of the Year: From Superstars to Below Average

    By Nathan Hale | Dec 21, 2009 | 0 comments

    Morningstar will announce the winners of their Fund Managers of the Year award on January 5. While it's a nice tribute to a manager's past success, don't make the mistake of believing that it can help you find a manager who can outperform going forward.

  • Hidden Risks Exposed in Gundlach’s Departure from TCW Group

    By Nathan Hale | Dec 14, 2009 | 5 comments

    A minor earthquake rippled through the mutual fund world earlier this month when TCW Group fired the well-regarded manager of their Total Return Bond fund, Jeffrey Gundlach, and replaced him with the management team from recently-acquired Met West. The episode highlights some often-overlooked risks associated with actively managed funds.

  • Fund Managers: Concerned with Their Bottom Line, Not Yours

    By Nathan Hale | Dec 7, 2009 | 0 comments

    Fund managers like to encourage their investors to believe that they're in a partnership, working together to achieve investors' long-term financial goals. But they're not your partner. And every so often a fund manager acknowledges this fundamental truth, as one did recently.

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Nathan Hale

Nathan Hale, a pseudonym, has spent over ten years working for one of the largest firms in the financial services industry. During his career, he's researched and written extensively about personal investing, the mutual fund industry, and financial services, contributing to a number of books and articles. In this role, he uses a nom de plume because many of his opinions about the mutual fund industry and its practices would not endear him to its participants.

Nathan Hale

In my nearly 15 years in the financial services industry, I've had the opportunity to see the industry from perspectives that very few people are privy to. I've contributed to books, articles and academic papers that examine nearly every facet of the industry. This study has led me to develop some very strong feelings, which can be summarized with a simple general statement: Your interests and the interests of those who manage your money are often in direct conflict. Of course there are exceptions to this, but they are discouragingly rare. In light of this fact, the vast majority of my investments are held in index funds. I do own a few different actively managed funds, believing, yes, that I'm an above-average investor, and can win against all odds.

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