RICHMOND, Va. (Business Wire) -- FUNDGRA+DES(R) is pleased to announce its Honor Roll of fund family award winners for the past three years ended September 30, 2008. The Vanguard Group, Inc. led the rankings as this quarter's top award winner with 100 funds receiving Overall Honor Roll status. Honor Roll certificates proclaiming this achievement were mailed in academic "scrolls" this week to all of the 318 recognized fund families.
Every month, the FUNDGRA+DES(R) database of over 22,000 mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) is graded on an A+ through F scale for five criteria designed by ERISA fiduciaries to expose what anyone investing for retirement should learn before buying or selling ANY fund. These five separately graded categories - diversification, expense, risk, return and the risk of material underperformance - are combined into an equally weighted overall grade. Usually less than 1% of all funds receive an overall grade of A or A-. Honor Roll funds (graded B or better) normally make up less than 4-5% of all funds.
The Top Five Fund Families by number of Honor Roll Funds is as follows:
#1 The Vanguard Group, Inc. #2 Barclays Global #3 Fidelity Investments #4 T. Rowe Price #5 American Funds
"In this challenging investment environment, investors, financial advisors and consultants are seeking sophisticated and objective guidance to identify those funds that are doing the best job of avoiding unnecessary risk," says David Loeper, CIMA, CIMC, president and CEO of Financeware, Inc., the developer of FUNDGRA+DES(R). "With FUNDGRA+DES, all funds are benchmarked against an index alternative as opposed to a peer group. When all of the so called "top rated" funds in a peer group are underperforming their benchmark, being "top rated" means nothing."
FUNDGRA+DES(R) has been praised in the advisor community for its objectivity and unique methodology in rating the vast array of funds in the universe.
"Perhaps the greatest value for advisors is the exposure of the weaknesses of peer group comparisons commonly used by other mutual fund rating vendors," reported Advisor Perspectives in their December 2007 issue. "FUNDGRA+DES(R) deserves accolades for providing this service free of any commercial interests."
About FUNDGRA+DES(R)
FUNDGRA+DES(R) is the easiest way to get one of the most sophisticated, objective, and stringent evaluations of mutual funds, closed end and exchange traded funds. FUNDGRA+DES(R) is an independent proprietary research methodology developed by Financeware, Inc. and the staff of its SEC Registered Investment Adviser (DBA Wealthcare Capital Management). There are no affiliations with any fund providers, broker dealers or investment management firms that manage funds, only independent, objective perspectives.
Wealthcare Capital Management uses these screening criteria in providing its fiduciary services to ERISA and advisory clients and exposes the criteria and results on the FUNDGRADES(R) site as a free educational service. Data is provided to Financeware by Thomson/Reuters, one of the largest financial data providers in the world.
For more information, please visit www.fundgrades.com.
For specific questions or comments related to the
FUNDGRA+DES(R) grading methodology:
Financeware, Inc.
Karen Nelson, 804-644-4711 Ext. 427
Knelson@financeware.com
or
For media:
Millennium Media Consulting, Inc.
Scott Tanner, 703-519-192
scott@millenniummedia.com
© Business Wire
