What Good is a Mutual Fund That Just Sits on Cash?

Filed in archive Investing on July 27, 2006

A basic principle of investing is that you don't want to time the market. Push your bundle in and leave it there, even when the market goes south and you get all jittery, otherwise you'll end up losing out on those big days when everything that glitters is gold.

So why do some mutual fund managers keep large amounts of your money as cash? You want to be in the market, right? You're supposed to be in the market, according to the experts. That manager's paid to make things happen, not go out for a round of golf on your dime. And God forbid he or she is employing market timing.

It's easy to get upset if you find out a lot of your money is in cash when you think of it as an investment. But as a mutual fund investor, you should be looking bottom line. Is your mutual fund outperforming the market, or is it getting spanked? If it's outperforming, don't worry about what the manager is keeping in cash. Sometimes business just stinks and your money's better off not being in the stinkhole. I have a fund that is very upfront about the fact that they only go after stocks that they feel have a certain level of returns in their futures. If they can't find the stocks, they don't invest the money. Better to keep cash than lose cash as far as I'm concerned.

Of course your mutual fund may be losing out to the indexes, as many, many of them do. In that case you have a legitimate beef about a manager who keeps too much in cash. On the other hand, if the manager's no good, you can at least console yourself that he or she wasn't losing the money that was in cash. And then you can take that cash away and put it with someone who's got a little better track record.

Bottom line: check the bottom line. If your fund's beating the market, don't quibble about how it got there.