Expense-free mutual funds?

Question

Hey y'all,A buddy of mine went to see a planner from Thrivent.  He got a "free" analysis of his financial situation including recommendations for purchasing Thrivent fuinds.  Of course, these funds carry loads.  The interesting part was that my buddy was told that by paying the loads he would not incur any other expenses from the funds - no annual expenses, no 12(b)-1, no account fees.  I'd be willing to bet that Thrivent won't waive the mutual fund expenses and that there was a "misunderstanding" between the planner and my friend.Any of you have experience with these guys?-Will

BreadWithSpam · Accepted Answer

Either your friend misunderstood, or the guy lied. Period. Either of these things do happen in the world.

For more information about the funds, look at any standard resource on the net (quote.yahoo.com, morningstar, etc)

There was also an interesting piece in the most recent SmartMoney magazine (Jul 2007, "Fund Insider", p. 26) about Thrivent. "High fees? Check. Poor performance? Yep. Why these funds do Lutherans a disservice". Needless to say, it wasn't very flattering.

Don · Answer

In addition to advising your buddy to get further details about the loads and expenses charged by Thrivent, you could do him a lasting favor by assertively urging him to abandon load funds entirely and look into no-load flunds and index funds with low expenses.

Will Trice · Answer

I was sort of doing that when he mentioned that the funds levied no ongoing expenses.  That was how the planner justified paying the load to my friend.-Will

Will Trice · Answer

I'll go buy him a copy.  Thanks for the cite.-Will

Dave Dodson · Answer

Looking at page 53 of the prospectus on the thrivent.com web site, I see that, in addition to the maximum sales charge of 5.5%, the funds carry the following annual fees:

Management fee: 0.25% Distribution and service (12b-1) fee: 0.25% Other expenses: 0.41% Less expense reimbursement: -0.31% Net Annual Fund Operating Expenses: 0.60%

It would be interesting to hear the representative explain how this amounts to no other expenses as the poster specified.

Dave

Expense-free mutual funds?

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