Mutual funds are investments that come at different prices depending on the type of securities they are invested in.
Other factors that help determine the prices are the prevailing market forces.
The prices are also to some point, influenced by the classes of the funds.
This means that the classes have the same rights and shareholder servicing fees and the difference comes in the sales charges and distribution charges.
The prices are best determined through a method known as indexing.
Indexing is the practice of shareholding a representative collection of securities.
There are different methods of doing so and depending on how the indexing is done, prices will most definitely differ.
Synthetic indexing for example translates to higher yielding instruments as this means that taxes will be withheld.
Other methods of indexing include the enhanced indexing, which is the more improved version of the synthetic method and the operating indexing.
This is a method of comparing a company's financial performance against that of other companies.
If it more favorable, prices are likely to go higher.
There are advantages associated with this method of pricing and one of them is that there are low costs involved.
This reflects directly on the investors returns because, it then means that they get to pay less in terms of management expenses and fees and hence they get a bigger portion of returns.
There is also simplicity in understanding the process of indexing as well as pricing.
There is need for investors to understand that, low prices do not necessarily mean good performance of a mutual fund, neither do high prices mean poor performance.
The best way to go about determining which prices are likely to favor you as the investor and the way to do this is to study the past performance of the investment over the years.