Are you spending your time looking at expense ratios, analyzing Morningstar ratings and searching for funds with low fees and no 12b1 charges? If you are like most people, you know these things in and out. You've spent hours evaluating them, and your chosen mutual funds cost little to purchase and maintain. But they still don't perform to your hopes and expectations.
Often, a company once trading on a big exchange finds itself demoted to the Pink Sheets as it either tries to restructure itself, or is just stuck there as a last rite of passage to the stock graveyard. Adelphia Communications (ADELQ) fits within this category. Once a darling among investors, due to a major CEO scandal that rocked the investment community, it is now bankrupt, and trading on the Pink Sheets with very little hope of ever getting back to the big boards as it goes through the liquidation process.
Not sticking to your plan. The market has been up and down in recent years and this makes people very emotional with their investments and jittery about short-term losses, says Saar. The result for some has been to 'cash out' of poorly performing mutual funds. "If you established a proper, diversified plan when you invested, it is important to stick to it even through the dips in the market," says Saar. "The market may get bumpy but because the RRSP is a long-term investment, you should ride out these bumps. The plan accounts for fluctuations but should still reach its goal in the long run." Investors who contribute regularly to their plan are less impacted by swings in the market and can benefit from an investment strategy called dollar cost averaging.