Below are some of the top performing Muni Mutual Funds for the last 3 months in no particular order.

These rates are good as of March 6, 2010 and are not intended as financial advice.

Pioneer High Income Municipal Y (HIMYX) – 4.12%
Pioneer High Income Municipal A (PIMAX) – 4.04%
Oppenheimer Rochester National Muni B (ORNBX) – 3.78%
Nuveen High Yield Municipal Bond I (NHMRX) – 3.92%
Delaware National Hi-Yld Muni Bd Instl (DVHIX) – 3.70%
Oppenheimer Rochester National Muni C (ORNCX) – 3.68%
Nuveen High Yield Municipal Bond C (NHMCX) – 3.67%
Oppenheimer Rochester National Muni A (ORNAX) – 3.87%
Pioneer High Income Municipal C (HICMX) – 3.81%
Nuveen High Yield Municipal Bond A (NHMAX) – 3.80%

If you have any comments or questions feel free to participate below.

With that in mind, the following are some picks which have a great track record, and should prove to continue that way even despite the change in economics within the US.

AIM Mid Cap Core Equity (GTAGX Quote) plays it safe with cash when fund managers can’t find decent deals. For this very reason it is a protection for investors. Managers go for a lot less greedy approach so to speak by selling when prices approach fair value, and purchasing everything at bargains.

Primecap Odyssey Growth (symbol POGRX). The Vanguard Primecap has returned an annualized 13.5%. With an excellent record in investing, Primecap Odyssey holds large companies like Google and Amgen which still have much potential for growth and have remained solid even during difficult times.

More listings will be added in the near future.

You will find however that the Fidelity Biotech mutual fund is going to be priced a lot better with an expense ratio of 0.89%, that makes a real winner. The fidelity fund invests mainly in larger companies rather than mid size which is also another positive with investing in it. Sometimes getting the best mutual funds just means investing with the bigger guy than the smaller more tempting companies. Either way the rewards can be great or amazing.

If you are planning on investing in biotech small- and mid-caps, you really have to be careful that you don’t make serious mistakes with investing. Serious research is involved to ensure that you are getting a valuable asset. Overall however Biotech mutual funds can be a great way to get into another sector of the market, and if you go with companies like fidelity, you have a much lower risk factor.

This is a very contrarian play but it might be a good long term investment to pick up some mutual funds specialing in financial stocks. When you think about it all the banks can not go to zero or the United States will be a complete mess and no one will have money. The government is going have to step in and save all the banks. So looking at it this way pretty much all financial stocks are looking like great deals for long term investing. Mutual funds work great for this situation since they invest in lots of financial stocks. Some of the Janus funds that only invest in the financial sector might be a good play right now. It would be to risky to invest in individual bank stocks since you never know which ones will fail. But investing in a lot diversify the risk and should give you some nice long term gains.

When the markets are getting beat up like they are now its important to be in mutual funds with low fees. This is when its nice to have quality funds that don’t have crazy fees like the best vanguard funds. People seem to forget that they pay fees when their mutual funds go up or down. They are coming out all the time. Nothing hurts more than seeing your fund lose money plus you also get charged a fee even when you are already losing lots of money.

Also when the markets are tanking many people will sell out of their stocks and mutual funds. Now this might be a good idea if you need the funds on a short time frame. But it has been proven time and time again that it is all but impossible to time the markets. Instead of putting a set amount each month into their mutual fund portfolio some people will try to time the market and invest a lot at one time when they think they picked a bottom. But if you look at the chart of the the DOW or any other index how could you ever be certain you picked the bottom. With mutual funds you shouldn’t be trying to trade them like stocks. They are long term investments that you just continually keep stocking money away in. It is tempting to try to pick a bottom or sell your mutual fund at a top and then jump back in if it falls back but take heed from all the past investors who tried this method.

If your looking for the best fidelity mutual funds you should be checking out the ones that got a four or five star rating from Morningstar. The Fidelity growth discovery fund symbol FDSVX is a five star morning star rating and is a fidelity fund pick. The minimum investment is $2,500 and it has done really well over the last 5 years. The return over the last 5 years has been 11.85% which out performed the Russell 3000 Growth by about 2%. The basic strategy is to invest in above average growth stocks.

The Fidelity International Discovery Fund is another of the best mutual funds fidelity has if your looking to get international diversification. Morning Star rating is 5 stars and the five year average annual return is over 22% which is really amazing.  For a well balanced portfolio you want to have some money invested in the best fidelity international mutual funds and the Discovery Funds seems like a good match for that.

The Janus Enterprise is a mutual fund that invests in fast growing companies and is one of the best mutual funds. Brian Demain is the current fund manager and he focuses on mid cap companies that are not too small but also not to big that there is no where for them to grow. This fund is also in a lot of different industries. Another popular Janus mutual fund is the Janus Research Fund. This one is pretty interesting since it has over 30 analysts who have lots of experience working on the fund. The main focus here is on growth no matter what size the company is.

The Janus Fund company is all about research. They are known for going overboard when researching companies to buy for their mutual funds. This seems like a great quality to have since you can never do to much research. This only makes sense since they only hire the best. A lot of their mutual fund managers are PHDs, MDs, or MBAs. They come from a cross section of study which helps keep the funds diverse and on the cutting edge. Janus mutual funds seems to have some really good funds out there and it seems like there fees are pretty low.

These mutual funds don’t just invest in straight stocks and equities. Janus has bond funds, money market funds, and asset allocation funds. So if your looking to really diversify, it looks like they got you covered. It seems Janus Mutual Funds are doing pretty good.

Vanguard is a great company that is known for having some of the lowest fees in the industry. Combined with their proven track record, you have a winning combination. Liper did a study and found that on average Vanguard’s fees are just one fourth the cost of other mutual funds. That is a big savings, especially when your savings are compounded every year. If you could get the same or better return and pay a lower fee for it, then you better be going with the mutual fund company that charges the least.

A lot of times low cost is associated with bad quality or bad service. This is not the case with Vanguard mutual funds. Vanguard has been around since the mid 1970s and is now managing over $800 billion in assets. If they didn’t provide quality service and good returns they wouldn’t have been around so long and manage such a large amount of money.

Vanguard is a big name in the mutual fund industry and we will discuss more about them and all their different types of funds in future posts. The main point to take away from this post is that mutual fund fees can really hurt your return. Your goal is to find the best mutual funds that also have very low fees.

Generally just buying one of the best mutual funds will help you be diversified but you need to keep in my some funds only invest in certain sectors. While sector funds will be a good way to play a lot of different stocks in say the banking or oil sectors they won’t give you a total diversification of being invested in all the sectors. Some of the best sector mutual funds can perform really good if things are on the up and up in that particular industry but you can really get hurt with them if you don’t buy into more generalized mutual funds to protect yourself.

Buying one of the best mutual funds that invests in all industries and is a great way to protect your self. Think of it this way; usually when one sector or industry is going up another one will be going down. By investing in all of them and being diversified you will be able to ride out the bumps and get a more overall average market return. Plus being invested in some of the best mutual funds will really help too.

What is a mutual fund? To make things easy, think of it as a pool of investors who bring all their money together. This money is then invested in stocks or bonds by professional money managers. Right there is the ultra simple definition of what a mutual fund is. But if you want to find the best mutual funds you have to understand more than that.

Mutual funds allow a small time investor to have their money professionally managed even thought they would never be able to have this happen with just the small amount of money they have. Economy of scale comes into play here; because so many investors combine their money in a mutual fund they get some advantages. It would be pretty tough to find a professional money manager to take the time to invest a little amount like $5,000 but when you combine hundreds of investors they can all benefit.

When you invest in a mutual fund you will buy shares in it just like you would an individual stock. But unlike stocks; they do not trade through out the day. What usually happens is that the NAV which is the net asset value is calculated each day and that is the price that you either buy or share you best mutual fund shares at. There are companies out there who’s main objective is just to figure out what each mutual fund is worth each day. If the stocks or bonds your mutual fund holds, are making money and going up in price than your shares in the best mutual funds will be going up in price as well. Of course if the fund your invested in is not doing good then your shares will be dropping in price as well.
I hope this overview will help you understand the best mutual funds a bit better.