Despite Market, Investors & Rivals, New Funds Keep Coming

Despite the unpredictable market and increasingly demanding investors, 955 new equity portfolios, were launched in 2005, The Wall Street Journal reports. These included 232 multi-cap core funds, 79 balanced funds, 70 income funds, 64 flexible portfolios, 41 large-cap growth funds, 21 real-estate funds, 14 tech funds, 10 natural resources and nine each for natural resources, health and biotechnology.

There are some perks to newly minted funds. The manager can spend freely on favorites, there are no capital gains taxes, and the fund might be able to move in and out of positions easily, unlike older funds.

However, funds with a few years of returns are preferred more.

Lipper reports that the following new nine funds are the top performers in their categories this year, and at the same time have low expenses: Royce Value Plus, Winslow Green Growth, Dodge and Cox International Stock, Bridgeway Aggressive Investors 2, Buffalo Mid Cap, Fidelity Mid Cap Growth, Fidelity Value Discovery, Icon Long/Short and the FMI Large Cap.