Introduction

This analysis will dive into the top 100 mutual funds provided to us by Yahoo Finance. We will look at the different types of mutual funds, the price changes, and the investment returns of the mutual funds from many different time frames (all within 2021). Before we dive into this analysis it is very important to understand what a mutual fund is. A mutual fund is a type of financial vehicle that pools together money from many investors. This money that is pooled together is then invested into securities such as stocks, bonds, and other assets. These funds are managed by professional money managers who allocate the fund’s assets to try and produce a capital gain for the investors that pooled their money together. Not all Mutual Funds are the same. Funds differ in sizes and objectives. For example one specific mutual fund may specifically invest a large percentage of their funds into a specific market sector such as technology, or even invest in other global markets. Mutual funds are a very popular type of financial vehicle for many investors.

What we want to know

We want to know what mutual funds have performed the best in regard to capital gains for 2021. We would also like to know what mutual funds have performed the worst in 2021. Finally, we will look and see if different brokers’ mutual funds have a higher price compared to one another.

Before we start here are some important items to define:
Symbol  The unique identification for the mutual fund. Usually with mutual funds it is 5 letters  
Name  The name of the mutual fund  The broker name that handles the fund is usually displayed here
Price Change 
 This variable shows the change of the mutual funds price on Friday, Oct 16
% Change 
 Percentage Change of the mutual fund on Friday, Oct 16
Intraday Price  Relatively speaking the price of the mutual fund on Friday, Oct 16  
3 Month Return  Percentage Return for the mutual fund over the past 3 months. If positive it’s a gain, if negative it’s a loss
YTD Return  Percentage return for mutual fund since 1/1/2021 

First Analysis

Let’s first look at the top 10 mutual funds that have had the biggest returns so far in 2021.

From the summary table above we see that Emerald Banking mutual funds make up the top 4 for capital returns this year. These funds are the only ones that have returned higher than 40%! You will see that in the fund name all 4 funds include the words “Finance Fund.” This tells us that these 4 funds have a high portion of their money invested in industries like banking, and other financial service industries. The financial sector of the market has performed well this year, which means these returns for these mutual funds should be no surprise. We also see that Fidelity has 2 funds that have returned in the mid 30’s. Looking at the mutual fund name this fund includes small cap value investments. From Fidelity’s website we know that both of these above funds invest at least 80% of assets in securities of companies with small market capitalizations, meaning companies that do not have a lot of capital (money) at this time. Rounding out the top 10 include small brokerage mutual funds that have larger than normal holdings in sectors such as IT, and even crypto currency (both sectors have performed very well in 2021).

Second Analysis

Now let’s take a look at 10 mutual funds that have had the worst returns so far in 2021.

Taking a look we see that there are 4 mutual funds who have lost over 9% since the start of 2021. We see that the worst 4 have foreign countries in the name of the mutual fund. The 3 China named funds come as no surprise as this year China has regulated many businesses due to political reasons. Fidelity’s risk description from their website on the China Funds clearly warns investors that foreign markets can be very volatile and can decline significantly in response to adverse issuer, political, regulatory, market, or economic developments. Also the T. Rowe funds are funds that invest heavily in foreign markets, mainly in Asia.

Are the highest priced mutual funds, worth it?

From the visual above we see that the highest priced mutual funds do in fact prove that they are worth it. Both funds that cost more than 300 dollars so far year to date have brought in over 30% in capital gains! 92 of the other mutual funds are below the 100 dollar mark, but it is important to see that the higher priced mutual funds all performed very well!

How expensive are the mutual funds by Broker?

The box plot above compares the different brokers that offer the mutual funds and what the cost ranges from for the funds. The one that sticks out the most is Rydex in which their average mutual fund is priced over 200 dollars. Baron Capital is the next closest. Many brokers are below the 100 dollar cost for their funds.

Final Analysis

Finally let’s look at the overall average returns for the mutual funds in 2021 by looking at different time periods. (YTD, 3 month, Day)

This data from Yahoo Finance was pulled after the Friday, Oct 15 trading day. We see that Friday turned out to be a very good day for the 100 mutual funds. In fact, Friday’s returns had a better gain compared to the last 3 months! Looking at the year to date returns we see that the average return was just over 12 percent. The last number in the row is the standard deviation which is relatively high, and shows us that many different mutual funds performed very differently from each other.

Further Validation

Further analysis can certainly be performed on these 100 mutual funds. It would certainly wise to dive into the specific holdings of each mutual fund and conclude what holdings have performed better than others. By learning which holdings have performed the best individuals can make wise decisions on which mutual funds to invest in and which to not invest in.

Conclusion

The above analysis clearly shows that not all mutual funds performed the same so far this year. We wanted to know which funds performed the best and the worst The best mutual funds had a heavy amount of their assets in Financials and IT. The worst performing funds had the majority of their assets in foreign markets - mainly Asia. We also saw that the high priced mutual funds performed very well in regard to capital gains. Next, we discovered which brokers priced their mutual funds higher than others. The broker that jumped out to us was Rydex whose share of a mutual fund on average was over 200 dollars! Finally, we dove into the average returns of the mutual funds over the course of the year. We saw that the last trading day (Friday Oct 15th) turned out to be a good day for the mutual funds, and that on average YTD these 100 mutual funds are returning over 12 percent to their investors. However, the past 3 months on average has actually seen a capital loss.