Larsen Idealog

THE FAT IN YOUR FUND — NUTRITIONAL LABELING FOR INVESTMENT PRODUCTS

They're buried in there somewhere. Lurking in small type. Way down on the list of ingredients. Somewhere beyond a series of clicks. Little numbers or percentages or maybe just referred to in a long paragraph that reads on like a narrowing artery — think of the legal document that is presented to the children who want to enter the Wonka factory. Maybe they're coursing through the expanding universe of financial disclosure verbiage, which we can't really see anyway. Yes , we're talking FEES. Those extra costs, expenses or how much it's really going to cost you to buy a particular investment product. They need to be part of simple and easy-to-read diagram that doesn't make your blood boil. There are some good charts out there, but an independent, objective view put into a well designed graphic is what we need.

"You know, one possible model is the food nutrition labels we now see on things we eat. They're short. They give a standard set of information and they're easy to understand. You know they're by no means perfect, but now a lot more folks can tell whether that box of crackers they pick up has more fat or sugar or salt or transfats than they want to eat. So a label like that for mutual funds could tell you more about whether a fund has too many of those empty calories called fees." — Steve Tripoli, Marketplace Correspondent, American Public Media

Marketplace Money

Posted by Peter de Sibour on Apr 17 2007