It’s crucial that you stay on top of all your mutual fund holdings. Some people become complacent when they buy into mutual funds, thinking that the funds’ professional manager is doing the job, and regular reports will provide sufficient information on the funds’ performance. Not true. You have as much obligation to know what’s happening with your mutual funds as you do with any other investment option.

Financial publications, national newspapers, and local newspapers are all places to keep tabs on your mutual funds. Add to that the Financial News Network and online services, and it’s likely that you can find all the important information on your mutual fund on a daily basis.

First and foremost, make sure you know exactly what symbol your fund goes by and don’t forget the letter following the fund, being the A, B, C, D issue. The letters primarily refer to the type of load, front load, back load, no load, etc. It’s amazing how many people have realized, after several days or weeks, that they either can’t find their fund or have been following the wrong fund.

Once you have found your fund, you need to understand the letters and numbers that make up the mutual fund listings. Among the many symbols and numbers you will see included the name of the fund family, the name of the specific fund, and the fund’s objective (OBJ), which will be listed such as CV (convertible fund), LG (large-cap growth), or GL (government, long-term bond fund).

The NAV (Net Asset Value) is the current price per share of the fund, or the price at which the fund is selling shares. By multiplying the number of shares you own by that price per share you can tell the current value of your fund. By comparing this to the total at which you bought the mutual fund, you will know how your fund is doing. If you purchased a fund from Aim, for example, at $9 per share and bought 2000 shares, then your initial investment would have been $18,000. If the fund is now at $11, then your value in the fund is now $22,000 or a $4,000 profit (if it’s a no-load fund, less operating costs and capital gains tax).

Next the listing will have changes, or the movement of the fund, by either the day, week, or YTD percent (which is year-to-date total percentage, including reinvested dividends and capital gains). All of this will give you an idea of which direction the fund is going. This is how you can follow your fund, but it is NOT how to choose a fund; to choose a fund you need the one-, three-, five-, and/or even ten-year totals and more information. Chasing daily returns is ill-advised in stocks or mutuals.

Some listings will include “Down Market” or “Bear Market,” which will indicate how the fund has performed during the downturns in the market. Again, this is information you’ll want when looking to purchase a fund.

A volatility ranking will tell you how much of a roller-coaster ride you can expect. Such a rating is the “beta” of the mutual fund. This is not generally found in daily listings but on comparison listings of funds over time. This can ease your mind on a day-to-day basis—you see sudden drops and then realize that this fund will have its share of peaks and valleys on route to (hopefully) showing solid gains.

Tomorrow, a last word on volatility.