Fund Authority Scores rate mutual funds and ETFs on the most important economic factors that influence individual investors' net long term diversified investment fund performance.

The Skilled Investor developed the Fund Authority Score system to provide individual investors with concise and objective comparative summaries of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) within investment style categories.

This article explains how Fund Authority Scores rate stock mutual funds and ETFs on the economic factors that most influence long term diversified equity investment fund performance.

Using an integer scale ranging from -10 to +10, Fund Authority Scores measure five factors: 1) annualized management and sales expenses, 2) trading costs, 3) historical performance, 4) fund maturity, and 5) operating efficiency.

This article explains how the Fund Authority Score system for ETFs and mutual funds rates historical stock or equity fund performance. The scientific investment literature has demonstrated that previous superior or average fund performance simply does not predict similar superior or average fund performance in the future.

However, there is good evidence that substantially inferior past fund performance is more likely to lead to continued inferior performance in the future. Much of this is sustained inferior performance is accounted for by the excessive costs of many funds with lousy past performance.

This article explains how investment fund maturity and operating inefficiency affect the Fund Authority Score system for stock or equity ETFs and Mutual Funds.

Diversified investment fund companies habitually create new funds. Breeding new funds allows fund companies to promote new funds that may get lucky and demonstrate above average returns over a very short period. Like moths to a flame, many individual investors will flock to any fund with seemingly superior results - no matter how short-lived or small the fund might be.

To amortize the management expenses that are necessary to manage properly a diversified investment fund each year, some minimum total asset figure is required. Therefore, it is reasonable for you to set minimum asset size selection criteria.

Good things are born small and grow over time. Regularly, The Skilled Investor evaluates individual mutual funds and ETFs and adds new articles that use the Fund Authority Score rating system.

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Historical performance charts allow investment fund promoters to selectively market their supposedly superior funds and to allege that their excessively high fees are worth it. Lured in by superior past performance, most often individual investors will get mediocre future performance before costs and even worse performance after costs. Unreasonably high investment expenses, industry sales and marketing fees, and excessive yet hidden, performance killing portfolio trading costs are the real economic factors that investors should pay attention to -- not the snake oil of historical performance charts.