By looking at some key factors concerning fees, you can get a sense of whether the mutual funds puts your interests first or merely seeks to line the mutual fund company pockets. Learn from the missteps of others, start applying these lessons to your mutual funds investment strategy and make a point of working with a qualified professional. Many people invest pretax earnings into their 401(k) funds, which they then have the option to invest in mutual funds of many options. It may seem like the safe and rational thing enter into best performing mutual funds, but like individual stocks, you want to buy low and sell high, not buy high and pray for more growth. Some mutual funds use redemption fees to discourage short term trading, a policy that is designed to protect longer-term investors. Divide you mutual funds portfolio into three parts: buy large capitalization company index mutual funds (S&P 500, DJA), small capitalization index mutual funds (S&P 600) and developed market index mutual funds or international index mutual funds. Overtrading in stocks also generates more transaction costs and fees that cut into investment gains but in mutual funds, there is no question of overtrading since your money is invested by experts (mutual funds manager) and diversified to reduce the risk. Mutual funds have been around since the 1800s, but did not become what we know today until 1924. Since there is no cost for you to enter a no-load mutual funds, all of your money is working for you. The expenses of mutual funds are met from the capital invested in them. . For more details visit: http://www.mutual--funds.info