Mutual fund holdings lists can be out of date
Q: How can I find out which stocks my mutual fund is invested in?
A: You generally can’t know what any managed fund owns at the moment, but most funds will publish lists of holdings as of the end of each month or quarter. You’ll likely find these reports on fund company websites and also at sites such as morningstar.com, which offer lots of information on a wide range of funds.
Don’t assume that the lists are still 100 percent accurate. While a fund may have many shares of a company as of the end of last quarter, it might have sold off most of them by the time you’re reading the report. Some fund managers engage in “window dressing,” loading up on hot stocks near the end of a quarter, so that they’ll look good.
Fool’s school:
Stock market shock
The stock market has been quite volatile recently, with the Dow Jones industrial average dropping 666 points on Feb. 2, 1,175 points on Feb. 5 and 1,033 points on Feb. 8. There have been some up days, too, but a downward trend could continue for a while.
What should you do? Well, the worst thing you could do is panic and sell. Any money you park in the stock market should be long-term money that you can leave there for five, if not 10, years, in order to ride out sharp downturns that happen at least every few years. Selling means you’ll be on the sidelines when a recovery begins in earnest, and you’ll miss out on many gains. The days with the biggest stock market gains often follow big drops. Indeed, the day after the 1,175-point drop, the Dow surged 567 points.
News articles aren’t helpful when they report market drops in points instead of percentages. The 1,175-point drop might have sounded horrifying, especially compared to 1987’s “Black Monday,” when the Dow fell 508 points. But in percentage points, the recent drop was a meaningful but not catastrophic 4.6 percent decline — while 1987’s drop wiped out a whopping 22.6 percent of the market’s value at the time.
Stocks can rise or fall in a single week, month or year, but there’s never been a 20-year period during which stocks lost money. If your time horizon is long enough, betting on stocks has always been a winner — especially if you have the courage to buy after a big drop. That’s what many of the best investors do. They maintain lists of stocks they’d like to buy at a good price, and then they wait for an opportunity.
You might reduce your jitters by investing in healthy companies that pay dividends, because those regular payouts tend to continue no matter what the stock market is doing.
Don’t let a market correction turn you against stocks. Expect occasional surges and plunges, and know that the market’s longterm trend has always been upward.
Name that company
I trace my roots to Atlanta in 1886, when a pharmacist served drinks made from a syrup he created. I loaded ammunition in World War II. Today I’m the world’s largest beverage company, with more than 500 brands. Twenty-one of my brands generate more than $1 billion in annual revenue. They include Dasani, Powerade, Minute Maid, Simply, Fuze tea, vitaminwater, Gold Peak, smartwater and Schweppes. My ticker symbol is a hit in the boxing ring. Who am I?
Last week’s trivia answer
I trace my roots to a yarn company in Boston in 1923. I became a major rayon producer and made parachutes in World War II. Today, I’m a global conglomerate specializing in aircraft, defense, industrial and finance businesses. Who am I? (Answer: Textron)