If you pick a mutual fund based on the rating, remember you will not get to know how the mutual fund performed in the past. A rating will not tell you anything about the future performance of a mutual fund. However, performance consistency along with management skill and expense limitation does influence the prospects of a mutual fund. If you want to invest in a mutual fund, you should take time out to evaluate these three aspects in order to select the best one.

Before investing in a mutual fund, you should first create a financial goal for yourself. You should be clear about the reason for your investment. It could be for retirement, buying a home or even funding your child’s education. This will have a serious implication on the type of mutual fund you select. If your need is not immediate, you can go for an aggressive approach. However, an immediate need for money means being careful and preserving your capital.

Do not get taken up by past performances of mutual funds. Yes, a fund’s record can be attractive especially in a weak market scenario but remember past performance helps to predict which mutual funds will perform badly. Top fund performers will rarely hold their position while really bad performers will continue to perform dismally. You have to make sure that you use the past performance indicators to avoid mutual funds which continuously perform badly.

Look for mutual funds that have a consistent record year after year. Do not opt for a mutual fund that had just few good performances. Look for mutual funds with historically good performance and avoid those that have good years followed by bad ones.

Once you take all these things into consideration, you will be able to select and invest in a mutual fund that best suits your needs.

A good place to start is by choosing a Exchange Traded Fund at this site : http://tinyurl.com/349pj3

It gives you the benefits below to get a headstart in your fund selection.
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Even with the high percentage of equities they will still throw off some taxable income.

If you want pure equities in a taxable account you can go with the Total Stock Market (all us though) and you alreday have the S&P 500 so you could use diversfication especially some international. You could also take a look at the Star Fund – a good all in one fund but with the allocation to bonds there still would be taxable income.

For agressive I’d go for one of the first two mentioned.

For no hassle more aggressive, you can look st the NASDAQ 100 Index, or very aggressive, the Russel 2000 Small Cap Index.

Put the max contribution in a Roth IRA. “Up to $10,000 in earnings withdrawals are considered qualified (tax-free) if the money is used to acquire a principal residence.”

“Withdrawals of earnings are tax-free once the participant reaches age 59.5 or becomes disabled, so long as the account is “seasoned” (established for five or more years).”

Let the growth (profits) stay in the Roth IRA and run tax free. Take the principle as you need it. Note you can not write off losses in an IRA of any kind.

Read more below.

Good Luck!

Something based on S&P 500 (a good index that rarely changes) is the way to go. You will only have a capital gains hit when a company drops out of the S&P 500 and is replaced by another.