The 100 Best Mutual Funds You Can Buy 1998 (Paperback)

~ Gordon K. Williamson (Author) "There are 5.4 million business entities operating in the United States; close to 14,000 of these businesses are publicly held (meaning they have issued stock..." (more)
Key Phrases: weighted coupon rate averages, growth fund today, one negative year, Lehman Brothers Aggregate Bond Index, United States, Alliance Municipal Income (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Williamson has reanalysed every one of the more than 8000 mutual funds available to consumers to determine an authoritative ranking of the best one hundred. Each of these top funds is evaluated for risk return, quality of management and expense control.

About the Author

Gordon K. Williamson is one of the most highly trained and designated investment counselors in the United States. Williamson, a former tax attorney, is a branch manager of a national brokerage firm and has written over 25 books, including Low Risks Investing; Big Decisions, Small Investor; and Making the Most of Your 401(k). --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Adams Media Corporation (October 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155850754X
• ISBN-13: 978-1558507548
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #6,425,862 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Uses old data, poor labels and tables would be better, April 8, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The 100 Best Mutual Funds You Can Buy 2004 (Paperback)

The 2003 edition of The 100 Best Mutual Funds uses data through December 31, 2001.
The book is primarily a collection of two page profiles on each fund. The profiles start with a 5 star ranking system to grade Total Return, Risk Reduction, Management, Current Income and Expense Control. Next the author uses 5 category grades to evaluate up-market performance, down-market performance and predictablility of returns. The grades are excellent, very good, good, fair and poor. I have two problems with these grading systems. First, the categories are too broad, second the author does not specify which time period or periods he used to determine the up and down market performance.
Finally, the two page profiles should be replaced with tables. Tables would make it easier to compare the mutuals funds in each category to one another. Tables would also eliminate the "same words but different numbers" monotony of the text.
I would recommend using Standard & Poor's Net Advantage database if it is available at your local library. If not the American Association of Individual Investors www.aaii.com provides a quarterly mutual fund data table, focusing on low load funds, at a reasonable price. The table can be downloaded into an Excel Worksheet so you can use Excel's filter feature to produce a list of funds with specific criteria.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not worth the money, November 13, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The 100 Best Mutual Funds You Can Buy 2004 (Paperback)

general information about mutual fund, something you can easily find on the internet.

12 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Helpful, April 21, 2000

By	Angela Liu (Connecticut USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The 100 Best Mutual Funds You Can Buy, 2000 (Paperback)

It seems to be a very useful and helpful book for me. Since I usually ask the opinions about the mutul funds from my financial advisor, I found this book can even replace him! Now, I am waiting for the profits I will get from buying those mutul funds.