[Hugh R]

Good topic, I recently switched from a full service broker how had done poorly for me for 13 years, to Schwab for my IRA. I'm putting $5K blocks in a number of mutual funds with 4 or 5 star morningstar ratings and that have returned at least some positive growth in the last five years and better than the S&P 500 over the last 10 years. If I can't get better than an S&P 500 index fund, why not just do that? Also, I'm selecting funds that don't mimic each other, some are in real estate (financials), some in industry, healtcare, home building, electronics, transporation, etc. I've invested about half my IRA cash at this time, and am in a money market for the balance until I figure out what else to get in. Not individual stocks, well.. maybe a few thousand to play only. I'm looking at Gennie Maes, I'm not sure at this point. I've got about 15 years to retirement. Any suggestions? I'm still doing research.

Question for Ken x men or moneyguy; Schwab's "no load, no fee" mutual funds all seem to have expenses of 1 to 1.5% is that a backdoor way of getting around "annual fees" and charge them another way, like my old broker did at 1.2% annual "fee"? Or should I be looking at other mutual funds with lower fees like 25 basis points (0.25%)?