MUTUAL FUND BUYERS GET A CLUE

Morningstar’s Russ Kinnel finds that mutual fund investors might at last be figuring out the game, Business Week reports:

[A] key trend suggests mutual fund investors are actually wising up and taking action. Kinnel grouped mutual funds into quintiles based on their fee level relative to their category peer group. He discovered that the cheapest quintile funds drew $122 billion in net inflows in 2011. All other quintiles had net redemptions, with the next cheapest posting $14 billion in net redemptions, the middle losing $21 billion, the fourth losing $18 billion, and “the most expensive quintile with an average expense ratio of 2.12 percent saw $13 billion walk out the door.” [Emph. added]

Good for fund investors. Not so good for fund companies. Then again, overall net inflows to equity funds are still negative. Let’s see what happens when that finally reverses. . . .