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.

The idea is to easily be able to own gold without physically bothering with it. In short a Gold ETF consists gold derivative contracts that are backed by gold.

One Gold Exchange Traded Fund that has caught the eye of many investors is Julius Baer after rising 5% the week to July 22. The amount of gold that the fund holds has increases quite drastically from 1.723 million ounces to 1.805 million ounces on July 22nd.

India Gold Exchange Traded Funds have also risen considerably in the past year.According to Reuters interview with fund manager Arvind Chari from Quantum Mutual Fund, “Investors have grown up by a 100 percent year-on-year”. he adds that they saw quite a bit of investor participation as well for the month of June.

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.

The rates below are good as of 6/16/09

If you have any questions based on how these particular funds were chosen, or how we lok at mutual funds before we list them on our site, feel free to contact us and provide some contact information so we can get back with you. We will be adding some updates in the near future, so please check back again soon.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars Allianz NFJ Small Cap Val – Small value / YTD 2.05
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars American Century Capital – Large Growth / YTD 12.02
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars Edgewood Growth Instl – Large growth / YTD 20.18
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars Goldman Sachs Small/Mid C – Large growth / YTD 23.26
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars Janus Adviser Forty A – Large growth / YTD 17.85

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.

If a no load mutual fund and a load mutual fund have the same annual return with the same fee schedule, than the no load mutual fund will out perform. Think of it this way some load funds charge a 3% to 6% commission up front. So if you invest $10,000 in a front end mutual fund then you will only actually be investing $9,400 if you are charged the 6% commission. You are already starting off with a loss. This issue doesn’t happen with the no load mutual funds vanguard has.

Now a lot of times no load funds like the ones vanguard has outperform but sometimes a load fund can be worth it. How can this be? Well if the load fund has good returns every year it can make up for the disadvantage of charging you a commission. If a load mutual fund returns 20% each year and a no load fund such as Vanguards only returns 10% a year you will be better in the long run with the load. But most often then not no load funds which Vanguard has will out perform load ones.

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.