Question

You invest $1000 in a mutual fund. You expect that the fund will earn a 8% return annually before expenses (~this is how much the fund's assets go up). You have a choice between purchasing class A mutual fund shares with a front-end load of 4% and no expenses or class C mutual fund shares with no loads but a 1% 12b-1 fee. What is your investment horizon if you are indifferent between these two? (Round to the nearest whole number of years. Please show all steps, formulae and solutions.)

Answer 1

Answer of this question is given below.

Mutual fund fees and expenses are charges that may be incurred by investors who hold mutual funds. Operating a mutual fund involves costs, including shareholder transaction costs, investment advisory fees, and marketing and distribution expenses. Funds pass along these costs to investors in several ways.

Some funds impose "shareholder fees" directly on investors whenever they buy or sell shares. In addition, every fund has regular, recurring, fund-wide "operating expenses". Funds typically pay their operating expenses out of fund assets—which means that investors indirectly pay these costs. Although they may seem negligible, fees and expenses can substantially reduce an investor's earnings when the investment is held for a long period of time.

For the reasons cited above, it is important for a prospective investor to compare the fees of the various funds under consideration. Investors should also compare fees against industry benchmarks and averages. There are many different types of fees, as discussed below. To facilitate the comparison of funds, it is helpful to compare the total expense ratio. The following table shows the weighted average total expense ratios for different types of mutual funds organized in the United States as of December 31, 2019, as published by Morningstar, Inc.

12b-1 Fee:

A 12b-1 fee is an annual marketing or distribution fee on a mutual fund. The 12b-1 fee is considered to be an operational expense and, as such, is included in a fund's expense ratio. It is generally between 0.25% and 0.75% (the maximum allowed) of a fund's net assets. The fee gets its name from a section of the Investment Company Act of 1940.

Here i will go for class A mutual funds as its rate of interest is 4%.