The Standard & Poors 500 stock index is the most common equity index fund benchmark in the U.S. The S and P 500 tracks about 75% of publicly traded U.S. equity market asset value. The dominant issue in choosing among passively managed index mutual funds and ETF funds benchmarked against the S & P 500 is that securities industry management and trading fees are all over the map from reasonably low to shockingly high. If you are naive enough to pay higher expense ratios for what are just commodity S&P 500 index funds, then the high investment fees that you pay are just a wealth transfer from you to the financial industry that repeatedly bleeds your personal investment portfolio.
Here is some good news for you. The Skilled Investor has published an article about lower cost S&P 500 index mutual funds that you can read, which is entitled: Low Cost S&P 500 Index Mutual Funds. Below you will also find our Fund Authority Score summary for the California Investment S and P 500 Index mutual fund, which is one of the best index funds for a lower cost standpoint.
The California Investment S&P 500 Index Direct received a very respectable +8 Fund Authority Score. The two points below the maximum possible are due to the fund’s .36% in total expenses and the size of the fund. At just over $100 Million in assets, the fund is small enough to be challenged by operating efficiency. This index mutual fund’s .36% expense ratio is subsidized with a waiver and would have been .17% higher without reimbursement by the fund manager. Check to see whether the fund intends to continue to waive some of its stated fees.
Note also that you can obtain shares directly from the California Investment Trust with an opening balance as low as $1,000.
The diversified investment fund strategy of the California Investment S&P 500 Index Direct
According to California Investment Trust’s website, the investment strategy of the California Investment S&P 500 Index mutual fund is to seek “investment results that correspond to the total return of large sized publicly traded companies as represented by the Standard & Poor’s 500 Composite Stock Index.”
The Fund Authority Score for the California Investment S&P 500 Index mutual fund
The table below presents the Fund Authority Score and other information for the California Investment S&P 500 Index mutual fund.
Fund Authority Scores [...]