how to read my statements

[the-royal-mail]

OK I'm putting my dunce cap back on with another really basic question. Good thing no one here knows who I am, some of this is embarrassing lol.

Anyway, my RRSP investment account statement for the last quarter arrived this week. I don't understand what I'm looking at here. This might as well be written in greek but I do like the bottom line figures, those I understand lol.

What does this stuff mean?

summary of your investments:

balanced funds (36.25%) along with a monetary account value
canadian equity funds (63.75%) along with a monetary account value

Is that good? What does this mean?

[Robillard]

It sounds like the 36.25% and 63.75% figures are proportions of your portfolio (or at least the portions of the portfolio you hold with this broker or fund company).

[OhGreatGuru]

36.25% of your account is in balanced funds, and 63.75% is in Canadian Equity Funds. Elsewhere in your quarterly report it should tell you precisely how much you have in each specific fund.

[the-royal-mail]

I do understand that part. I am just wondering if I'm doing something wrong with how my RRSP $ is invested. Were those well chosen? Is my profile typical?

[Taxsaver]

What I would like to see is different portfolios and see what THEIR results were for the same period. Or even better, to show what was the most performing portfolio.

[MoneyGal]

There are a million different (competing) theories about asset allocation. However, leaving that aside, I have two general comments:

- your allocation is not very diversified. (I don't know what kind of balanced fund you have, but I suspect it is a Canadian balanced fund).

- balanced funds are an expensive way to hold fixed income. Let's assume you are going to keep the same stocks/bonds asset allocation: it would be cheaper for you to hold one Canadian equity fund, and one bond fund.

We aren't going to know whether these were "well-chosen" unless we know a lot more about you. I also don't know what, in particular, you are wondering about w/r/t these funds. That said, one of the main things you can control when investing is your costs to participate. Do you want (us) to figure out how much you are spending each year to hold those funds?

[the-royal-mail]

Thanks MG and tax. I'm not sure about any further (portfolio?) breakdown than what I have shown. I might have to rifle through some papers to try and find further detail about what I have now.

I bought these at the bank a few years ago. I simply told them I was aggressive and that I wanted to invest in mutual funds. During some quarters I saw growth of 33% and during the recent market crash I saw negative returns. It's just that I see everyone on here speaking so freely about how they invest. Everyone knows what they're talking about. This is one of those topics I just don't understand. So yes, if there is a way of knowing the annual costs of holding these funds by all means, whatever eye-opening info you can provide would be great. I'm just a young guy so am not risk adverse for this particular investment.

[MoneyGal]

It's easy to get the annual cost.

Tell me (via PM or post here) what the fund name is and the FUND CODE (on your statement, it will say something like "Happy Canadian Rainbow and Unicorns Equity Fund 1439 DSC". That's what we'd need to know.)

Then you can look up the fund (once you know the exact code) on Morningstar.ca to find out LOTS of things including holdings, "style," and annual fee.

This is in no way any kind of identifying info, so not to worry about identifying yourself by naming your mutual funds.

[the-royal-mail]

Thanks Mg, you're great.

OK here is what it says on the other paperwork:

Balanced funds
RBC Select Choices Aggressive Growth

Canadian Equity Funds
RBC CDN Equity Fund

Oddly, there are no fund codes. I checked through some other papers and couldn't find them there either but it was just a quick search. LMK if I need to dig deeper.

This is really helpful. Thank you.

[MoneyGal]

Does this work? Here's the Morningstar "quicktake" report on your "Select Choices" fund:

http://www.morningstar.ca/globalhome...sp?fundid=6182

The annual cost to hold this fund is 2.45% per year (i.e., multiply the value today by 2.45% and you will get a rough estimate of the annual cost).

Note that your fund lags both the category and the index for the last 5 years.

Report on second fund coming up.