What I Have Learned So Far From Investing in Mutual Funds

It’s been 12 days since I started monitoring the performance of the Sunlife Equity Fund that I invested in (with help from my Financial Advisor Sasha So Seng Yu) and I’ve learned about some facts about it that are important. I must admit it took some time before I understood these facts but with help from Sasha it became clearer to me how to assess the performance of my shares so far in this Equity Fund.

First of all, I learned how to monitor by myself the performance of the Equity Fund. I simply go to sunlife.com.ph and look for the NAVPS acronym at the lower right hand side of the home page of Sunlife. I click on that and that brings me to the table where the daily performance of the Equity Fund is listed (along with the other mutual funds that Sunlife administers). The column for the NAVPS is listed in the table and that is the Net Asset Value Per Share for that day. I take that NAVPS for that day and multiply it by the number of shares that I own in the Equity Fund. That gives me the value of my investment for that day alone – this is called the Fund Value.

Second, there are two other values that are important to take note in the same table. Beside the NAVPS is the YTD or year-to-date returns. Sasha says that means that is the performance of the Equity Fund starting January 2014 up to the date I am checking the NAVPS. So far the Equity Fund has been performing well so no complaints there. Then there is the YOY or year-on-year returns. That means the performance of the fund beginning the same date the year before up to the date I am checking for this year. That’s a bit confusing but mainly it means if I am checking the YOY on November 7, 2014 then the YOY starts from November 7, 2013. So the YOY measures the performance from November 7, 2013 up to November 7, 2014 (exactly one year).

I have found that it is important to keep a notebook solely for noting down the NAVPS for the day. It helps keep me focused and clears up confusion if I am not sure what the percentages in the NAVPS table means. I assume that eventually it will become second nature to calculate in my head what the NAVPS is for the day actually. But it’s still important (according to Sasha) to note down the NAVPS especially to compare to the first day when my investment was formally funneled into the Equity Fund. That way I can benchmark the progression of my investment in the Equity Fund over time.

There is actually some other stuff that I have to learn so it is good Sasha gave me the prospectus for another Fund that is administered by Sunlife. I am still reading it to absorb the acronyms that they seem to use as shortcuts for the terms. However, I must always bear in mind that many parts of the prospectus don’t apply to the Equity Fund so I have to be careful not to jumble the parts of each Fund together. But so far that is what I’ve learned and I’m okay with the performance of my investment at this point in time.