Total Return

How can you tell if a mutual fund is a good mutual fund? One of the best indicators is to check its total return. Obviously, if mutual fund is giving you a good total return, it is one that has proved itself to be valuable to you.

Total return includes everything--dividends, capital gains, interest, etc. It is expressed as a percentage of the original net asset value. Assuming that you have re-invested your distributions (see Distributions), then figuring out yield is not that complicated.

(Year-end # of shares * Year-end Net asset value) - (# of shares you owned at the beginning of the year * Beginning Net asset value) * 100 divided by (beginning # of shares * Beginning Net asset value)

Previous Article | Document Index | Next Article