Think Through Mutual Fund Investment Objectives and Styles
Every mutual fund has an investment objective that spells out its goals. The objective states what investing style fund managers pursue and how they intend to carry out that objective.For example, a typical growth and income fund’s objective could read like this: “Growth and Income Fund X seeks growth of capital and dividend income. The fund invests at least 65% of its assets in common stock of large, well-established companies with a history of paying level or rising dividends. The fund may invest up to one-third of its assets in foreign securities.”There’s a lot of information packed into those two sentences. From reading this objective, you’ve learned that the fund is traveling down the proven growth and income route, buying up stocks of large companies with solid histories of dividend payments.Keep in mind that, in some cases, a fund’s name is really not consistent with its objective, although it is in this case.Note also from this objective that Growth & Income Fund X may invest a full third of its assets outside of the United States. The key word here is “may.”To see exactly what percentage of assets is invested oversees, take a look at the global weighting, which can be found in a fund’s Morningstar report, as well as in the fund’s annual report to shareholders.Some investors are wary of funds that invest a significant proportion of their assets overseas, because it isn’t always easy to get information about foreign companies. Without adequate information, it can be hard to tell whether these foreign companies are growth companies or the type of companies you want to invest in.Investment ObjectivesWhen it comes to stock funds, investment objectives range from the most conservative to the most aggressive.Index funds attempt to replicate the performance of a portion of the market or even of the entire market. The most widely followed index is the Standard and Poor’s 500 index, which consists of the 500 largest publicly traded U.S. companies on domestic stock exchanges.Index funds are based on a variety of domestic and foreign indexes. Before you invest in an index, be sure you know exactly what types of companies your chosen index invests in.Balanced funds hold stocks and bonds. Traditionally, the proportion allocated to stocks and bonds has been close: 60/40 or 65/35 one way or the other. Make sure that whatever balanced fund you choose does divide its assets between stocks and bonds using a stated formula; otherwise, you may be purchasing a stock fund or bond fund in disguise.Stock income funds focus their investment on high-dividend-yielding companies and pay out more dividends and distributions to shareholders than other types of funds. Stocks held by a stock income fund typically account for 60% to 75% of such a fund’s portfolio.The trade-off here is that the dividend income gained by fund shareholders is often at the expense of slower growth and lower price appreciation for fund holdings.Growth and income funds hold growth and income stocks. They can also hold more bonds to generate income. These funds are designed to be less volatile than typical growth funds, and they provide some of the income potential traditionally found in stock income funds.Growth funds seek to profit from capital appreciation; that is, an increase in share prices of their individual company holdings. To accomplish this, fund managers invest in companies that exhibit rising sales and earnings.If about 90% of a growth fund’s assets are in stocks of large, established companies with a moderate rate of growth and paying high dividends, a strong degree of stability is provided, offsetting risk.Aggressive-growth funds aim for maximum gains by taking larger risks than other growth funds. Managers invest in companies with estimated potential, or by purchasing smaller companies in popular industries.Because of this aggressive investment philosophy, the turnover rate of aggressive-growth funds can be extremely high. A high turnover brings higher commissions and potentially higher capital gains that can increase your investing costs.Sector funds concentrate their portfolios in one particular industry. There are many types of sector funds, ranging from those focused on technology to others focusing on health care or the financial industry. Because these funds have a concentrated portfolio, they tend to be highly volatile.International funds invest in companies around the world. Be aware of different types of funds within the international category. Global funds can invest anywhere in the world, including in the United States. International funds invest only in countries outside the U.S. There are many narrowly focused funds that invest in one particular country or region of the world.Investment StyleInvestment style, as categorized by companies such as Morningstar and Lipper, comes in three flavors: growth, value, and blend (or core).In the growth style of investing, the fund manager seeks out companies with above-average sales and earnings growth.Under the value style of investing, managers purchase companies that appear to be undervalued. Valuation is based on certain defined measurements such as price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios, price-to-book-value ratios, or “fair value,” a ground-up valuation of the company’s business expressed in dollars per share. Fund managers assess such opportunities based on their experience with other turnaround situations.With the blend style of investing, managers blend both growth and value investing. In some cases, they follow a growth philosophy, while in others, they look for undervalued opportunities.Both growth and value investing have their proponents and both styles have done well in years past.
Hit or Miss? Software Telemarketing Does It Better With Lead Generation and Appointment Setting
Hunting down methods on how to become a successful software firm is kind of difficult. Sometimes it plays out just like a hit or miss game, meaning that when you choose something it is either successful or is not. That being said it would also mean a lot of spending on the part of any software firm. When it comes to this type of search for a reliable solution, many sometimes choose to take a risk and employ the services of a software telemarketing firm. But when you work with a telemarketing firm, you can say it is also hit and miss but this, instead, can be applied to the calls that the telemarketers that will be working under you make.Software telemarketing may be a hit or miss strategy but that is just how it becomes effective. Telemarketers are known for making cold calls, a method of how they do their telemarketing, and through these cold calls can gather much needed information in terms of improving how a company can market its products and services. Usually, cold calling is also used to generate leads for companies that pay good money for entire lists and databases full of them. There is also a need for software leads when it comes to making sales for a software firm; software leads such as ERP leads can help a firm that sells ERP software to their clients and also aids them in looking for more prospects. Software, as you may already know, is not something that easily sells. Everyone is always looking around for good software to improve efficiency and functionality, getting the word out to them is the problem though.But with software telemarketing that becomes a task you can handle. Lead generation services for software leads alone can help gather important information when it comes to how you can better market your software products and other services. But aside from just software leads, software telemarketing can offer something more to also help you out when it comes to making more sales, or when it comes to establishing contact with other companies. This is called software appointment setting and this approach can improve your chances when it comes to closing a deal or making a sale occur. But before a successful software appointment setting campaign can take place, you must make sure you have a lot of software leads at your disposal, hence the need for lead generation. The good news about this is that it only takes a single software telemarketing firm to do both tasks as many of these telemarketing service providers generate their own leads on a regular basis and sometimes offer their services in package deals, offering to do both lead generation and software appointment setting for you.Now, how does software appointment setting work? Well, it’s simple enough to understand. Using software leads, a telemarketer makes calls to a prospect company. After contact is made, the telemarketers attempts to get in contact with the appropriate decision maker of the company. From there, the telemarketer will introduce your company, what you do and offer to the client, and then go on to ask if they would be interested to meet with you in regards to a presentation about your products and services. After that, if it is agreed upon, it would fall to you to make the deal happen.Software telemarketing may be a hit or miss when it comes to generating software leads and software appointment setting, but you can be assured that the positive outcome outweighs that of the negative. Give this marketing strategy a try and see for yourself how software telemarketing can be effective for your software firm.
And Then, We Have Blogging
If you wanted to see someone, you picked up the phone, called them and made plans. If you were running late, you got there when you could. There weren’t cellular telephones to call and talk to someone every minute of the way. Now kids are used to a very virtual reality when it comes to the world we live in. If you don’t know about blogging yet, you will soon.The internet broke wide open and gave us a brand new way to communicate. Ever since then, people have been trying to create the quickest and easiest way to get their feelings and thoughts across. Not only do we have instant messaging and texting, we’ve got blogs. It seems like everyone has their own blog these days.Blogs began as weblogs, chronological journals of what someone was thinking or feeling in an online diary. AOL and other internet service providers gave users a chance to express themselves freely on member pages and sites. This was the beginning of blogging. At first, it was a very basic method of posting your thoughts.Now people blog about everything from world news and politics to fashion and eyewear. There are literally millions of blogs online. Don’t be surprised to find people blogging about everything from where to find cheap gas to what celebrities are wearing in town today.Blogs provide an outlet for those who feel they have something to say. Everyone gets a chance to be heard and this gives many a release they didn’t otherwise have. When you are interested in finding out what everyone is thinking, go searching for a blog on your favorite topic. You can make great friendships and also learn about merchandise, services and local companies. Always make sure to be on your best behavior when blogging, you never know who will read what you write!