Mutual Fund

I just opened the latest email from Sunlife of Canada. If I haven't been tracking our Mutual Fund (MF) daily and have just opened the mail now, I would have been too disappointed and worried. You see, we have invested in Sunlife's MF (Equity Fund to be specific) and right now, it is currently down (as is the rest of the world stock market I pressume).

But for the past couple of months, I am glad that it is going up. It is still below the amount that we bought (meaning we're still losing) but I am optimistic, it can only go up. I just have this gut feel. LOLz.

To those who haven't heard about MF, here's Wikipedia's description: "A mutual fund is a professionally managed firm of collective investments that collects money from many investors and puts it in stocks, bonds, short-term money market instruments, and/or other securities. The fund manager, also known as portfolio manager, invests and trades the fund's underlying securities, realizing capital gains or losses and passing any proceeds to the individual investors."

We bought our shares last August 2007. We've invested it for a 5-year term. We can still withdraw the money anytime, but we'd have to pay a lot of fees if we decide to withdraw our investment before the term expires. This is what we have chosen so won't be tempted to take the money anytime we want. We have actually set aside this money for EJ's college fund.

Now that I have somewhat understood how this works, I am not sure anymore if investing it in a 5-year term is such a good idea. Maybe we should have invested it in a year's term only. But then again, we might have been tempted to use the money for something else.

I can only pray and hope that our MF's Net Asset Value goes up through the years. It goes without saying, I'll be praying for a better economy for the Philippines.