The Power of Automatic Investing

One of the easiest and most efficient ways to invest in mutual funds is through Automatic Investing. Often referred to as dollar-cost averaging, Automatic Investing is a simple term for a type of mutual fund installment-purchase plan. We recommend it as one of the best ways to grow your investment over time.

Automatic investing is especially valuable for the investor who wants to get started in investing, but doesn't have a large lump sum to invest. As an added benefit, many companies at this site reduce or waive the initial investment requirement when an automatic investment is established.

Automatic Investing works particularly well if you fear that you might buy a mutual fund at its peak, just before the stock market and your fund shares head into a slump. It provides a disciplined way to invest a portion of income at regular intervals without trying to guess when the market is at a high or at a low. It protects you from extreme fluctuations in the market. And, its effect on your investment's growth over time can be nothing short of amazing.

Using this strategy, you buy a fixed dollar amount of mutual funds on a regular basis, usually monthly or quarterly. In this way, you will purchase a larger number of shares when the price is low and a smaller number of shares when the price is high. When the time comes to sell -- and assuming that the price when you sell is higher than the average cost for your monthly purchases -- you show a profit.

Regular investments of $100 purchased a total of 44 shares in this simplified illustration. As the fund's price fluctuated between $10 and $12.50 a share, more shares were bought as the price declined. The investor earned a 10% profit although the initial and closing net asset values were the same, because its average cost per share was lower than the final value per share.

The primary benefit of dollar-cost averaging by participating in an Automatic Investment Plan is that your shares will always have an average cost lower than the average of the prices at which they were purchased. With it, you are investing for the long term and counting on the upward trend in the stock market over time. There is no complicated analysis of the economy, the markets or interest rates. You simply invest a fixed amount on a regular basis no matter what the share price is doing.

More importantly, you begin a disciplined investment plan that helps to ensure the long-term growth of your portfolio.

Dollar-cost averaging does not ensure a profit, protect against a loss in declining markets or against a loss if you stop the program when the value of your account is less than its cost. You should consider your financial ability to continue making purchases through periods of low price levels. There is no method of investing that can guarantee a profit if you should decide to sell at the bottom of the market, but the potential for high return on your investment is increased with your long-term commitment to dollar-cost averaging.

With no-load mutual funds you may make additional periodic investments in small dollar amounts, without a sales commission each time. You can arrange to have automatic monthly withdrawals from your bank account made directly into your fund account. By automatically transferring $100, $200 or more monthly, you buy shares using dollar-cost averaging and set aside savings that can grow over time.

Automatic Investing is one of many customer service features fund companies provide and it's one of the simplest ways to achieve the benefits of dollar-cost averaging.

Liquidity: Speedy Cash for Your Shares

Mutual funds should make it as easy to get your money back as it is to put it in. Liquidity is an important feature of mutual funds.

When you're ready to sell your investment, it is easy to redeem your mutual fund shares.

Most money market mutual funds (and some other fixed-income funds) offer checkwriting privileges. The fund provides you with checks that you may draw against the value of the shares in your account. You may write a check payable to yourself and deposit or cash it at your bank, or you can use it to pay your monthly mortgage and other bills and continue to earn dividends on your funds until the check clears the mutual fund.

If you own shares of a stock fund and a money market fund that both belong to the same family of funds, the fund probably offers a telephone exchange privilege. This enables you to telephone the fund and ask that a certain dollar amount of shares be redeemed from your stock fund. The fund has seven days to transfer it into your money market fund (the transaction normally takes three or four days). You may then write a check against the money market fund, in effect gaining immediate access to the funds in the stock fund.

Many funds offer wire redemption, which enables you to have the proceeds of shares you sell deposited directly into your checking account through the bank wire-transfer system.

Some mutual funds require redemption requests to be in writing, accompanied by a signature guarantee. This policy is designed to protect consumers by preventing unauthorized or fraudulent transactions. Signature guarantees can be obtained from any commercial bank. If your savings bank cannot provide a signature guarantee, ask for a corresponding commercial bank that can.

Beware of any charges or expenses your fund levies at redemption. The prospectus clearly outlines such fees.

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