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Originally Posted by toy71camaro
so.. diving into my 401k now... all mutual fund stuff... and I'm getting confused the deeper i look.. lol...
So, I'll just take one fund here, for sake of understanding...
I look at my "Royce Opportunity" fund. It shows i have aprox a $2500 "Balance" and I have aprox 120 "units" with a Unit Value of 20.251. But when i click on the fund, it brings up the fund details page. Says the ticker is RYPNX.
Ok, all ok so far...
I go to Schwab, lets "dive into this fund"... I pull up RYPNX, it shows its $12.12 a share.. wait, i thought it was 20.251?  I take my 120 units multipied by $12.12 and i got barely half of what my 401k balance sheet says. 
Then... second thing...
I look at that ticker on schwab, shows a 0.00% dividend yield.. ok, No dividend. fine. Then it has a "Long Term Capital Gain" of $0.1887. With a Distribution total of $0.1887 as of 12/08/11. So, was that $0.1887/share given to me? or, something else?
Not sure this is "Investing 102".. but... i figured you guys might know the answers. lol |
So what you may be seeing is a "balance" that is both cash and units purchased... and perhaps they only invest your cash hoard quarterly... as it builds up. Just guessing here.
The MUTUAL FUND collects the DIVIDENDS from the companies they own --- they can choose to pay out a LONG TERM CAPITAL GAIN if they have any as they buy and sell the shares that make up the fund. Sometimes you get a real nice LTCG and sometimes not so much. What you really want out of these is the long term growth that you get from shares purchased on a regular basis... and of course... hopefully the fund performs as well. Sadly -- this fund has a pretty steep (percentage wise) fee in excess of 1%. While that doesn't seem like a lot -- it adds up over time -- because it's 1% of YOUR invested dough from day one --- and every year thereafter... but they are what they are. And saving this way is better than "not".
