prgclb@ihuxm.UUCP (07/20/83)
The following news item comes from the Wednesday, July 20 issue of USA Today: ************************************************** Low-loads: A mutual fund trend? Some investors are boiling about the Fidelity Group's decision to impose a 2 percent load (sales charge) on six of its popular Select mutual funds. Burton Berry, publisher of NoLoad Fund X, a San Francisco-based mutual fund newsletter, says his readers are "expressing outrage" at the load. Fidelity, like other big mutual fund companies, has long offered no-load funds to encourage investor purchases. Fidelity's 2 percent load still is less than the normal 5 percent to 8 percent charged by many brokerage house mutual funds, but there's a big difference, Berry notes: The normal load goes to the broker or salesperson who initiates the transaction. Because investors buy Fieldity shares directly from the company, the 2 percent load goes to the fund manager -- a tidy extra profit. Berry worries that other no-load funds will follow Fieldity's example. "If investors don't resist, they stand to lose one of the best deals in the marketplace (no-load funds)," he says. **************************************************** Carl Blesch Bell Labs - Naperville, Ill. IH 2A-159, (312) 979-3360 ihuxm!prgclb