Our new Fund Screener enables you to find the lowest cost funds (= most advantageous to you) for meeting your investment goals. While there are many other fund screeners on the Internet, the Personal Fund Screener is an easy and efficient tool that focuses on the few basic criteria that matter most for selecting funds and ETFs — investment category and costs. Unlike other screeners, it informs you of funds’ tax consequences, which if unheeded can eat way at your nest egg; and it doesn’t clutter your screen with menu options and details that are irrelevant to your financial well-being.
What it does: All you need to enter is the type of assets you wish to invest in, the amount you wish to invest, and minimal details on your tax considerations. The screener produces a list of the 5 funds or ETFs (10 for premium subscribers) which invest in the type of assets you’re interested in, and which have the lowest combination of expense ratio, internal transaction costs and tax consequences (if applicable ) for that fund category; along with details about recent costs, risk and returns. The screenshot shows the results of a screen for U.S. Small Cap stock funds to be held in a taxable account.
What it does not do: Unlike most other screeners on the web, ours does not rank the results by unhelpful criteria such as various time periods of past performance (which don’t predict future performance). Nor does it ask you to specify senseless options such as whether or not you would consider a fund with a load or redemption charge (in fact, there is never a good reason to buy into a fund with a load or redemption charge, so our screener simply rules those out). Nor does our screener bother with Morningstar’s ubiquitous but ineffective “star ratings”. The Wall Street Journal investigated Morningstar’s ratings, and reported that they are a “mirage” and not a good guide to a fund’s future performance. Morningstar’s own research acknowledges that expense ratio is a better predictor of future performance than its own star ratings. (Indeed, the star ratings themselves are largely informed by costs. It is unproven and doubtful that the star ratings, after statistically controlling for costs, retain predictive value).
Instead of a noisy dashboard full of unnecessary checkboxes and results of dubious benefit, our new Fund Screener quickly and effectively identifies the lowest cost funds of any investment type — which decades of research have shown is the most reliable predictor of future success.
Check it out: http://personalfund.com/screen/ It’s free to use for all registered users. We think you’ll agree that it’s America’s Most Useful Fund Screener™.