Probably this book annoys many readers by its failure to say which are the best mutual funds, but we feel we have good reasons for the omission. This book aims to give information and ideas that an investor has difficulty in finding elsewhere. By contrast, details about specific investment companies, as well as other stock-issuing corporations, are easy to obtain. Also, so many of the investment companies have arguments in their favor, for some types of investors, that a fair presen­tation would have to include a good many companies. Details should be revised annually, because new funds are born and old ones change their habits.

The best single source of details that we know of, on both best mutual funds and closed-end investment companies, is a manual called Investment Companies (price $25) issued annually by a stockbroker firm, Arthur Wiesenberger & Com­pany, 61 Broadway, New York 6, New York. The excessive size of this book is due to the repetition each year of most of the general explanation portion.

Johnson's Investment Company Charts is a loose-leaf book of colored charts and tables issued annually (price $35) by Johnson's Charts Inc., Rand Building, Buffalo 3, New York.

Investment Trusts and Funds From the Investor's Point of View is a small book sold by the American Institute for Economic Research, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and revised frequently (price $1.00).

A Mutual Fund Directory Section is issued twice a year, (price $2.00 apiece) by The Dealers' Digest Publishing Com­pany, Inc., 150 Broadway, New York 38, New York.

An index of some forty mutual funds, prepared by Henry Ansberger Long, is carried monthly in Trusts and Estates, a magazine published by Fiduciary Publishers, Inc., 50 East 42d Street, New York 17, New York. The trust department of a bank is apt to have this magazine.

Also by Mr. Long is a survey of the recent changes in the portfolios of some seventy investment companies, printed quarterly in Barron's National Business and Financial Weekly, 388 Newberry Street, Boston 15, Massachusetts.

It would be nice if we could end this book with the simple statement "For further information see your local stock-dealer." But these dealers are all sorts of men, and from our limited observation, most of them are not good channels of information on investment companies. The reasons for this are natural enough. The dollar volume of business in shares of investment companies, although growing rapidly, is still only a few percent of the total volume in stock dealing. Also, purchases of mutual funds are apt to be in small dol­lar amounts, causing many dealers to consider them a nui­sance. Some dealers appear to be positively opposed to mutual funds, probably fearing that the funds are reducing specula­tion, thereby cutting a dealer's commissions.

On the other hand, a minority of dealers takes mutual funds seriously, and some have a mutual-fund department, whose representatives are trained to concentrate on best mutual funds. Here we run into another difficulty. A skillful salesman of certain mutual funds may be lacking in the background need­ed to make him a competent adviser.

An investor might attempt to locate a dealer who seems to be interested and informed on mutual funds, and who has in his office some of the reference material mentioned above. In a large firm, maybe the local representative has no infor­mation, but on request, he can borrow material from another office.

If no such dealer is in reach, then an investor had better proceed himself to locate and study this published material and to use a dealer only as an order-taker. An investor who prefers not to buy through a dealer has the same job as with an uninformed dealer; he must first select the fund he wants.

Where a man consults an advisory service or an investment counselor, he should remember that these people probably look on a mutual fund as a dangerous competitor. But an investment adviser who is also a stock-dealer may play on both sides of the street. For a client whose capital is above some minimum, such as $60,000, he acts as adviser, avoiding mutual funds? But for a client with smaller capital, the adviser's minimum fee for individual handling would be excessive so the adviser changes his hat, becomes a dealer, and urges the client to buy shares in best mutual funds.

Before attempting to select a specific company a man needs to decide what sort of fund suits him. For example, does he want a balanced fund or a common-stock fund? And among common-stock funds does he prefer to em­phasize large current dividends, or growth in future value, or a compromise of these two?

After selecting the type of fund, a man can use publica­tions such as those mentioned above to compile a list of a few best mutual funds that look best to him. Then he can get more complete information on those few companies, asking for prospectuses and other booklets furnished free by each fund.

The End