Ha, regarding "late to the party", that sounds like me when it comes to market-timing. I always had the knack for buying at market peaks and selling at the lows. So I don't play the market-timing game anymore, just a dumb old buy-n-hold based on fundamentals.
I'm glad you found the thread, yeah it died a month ago. If you've seen my webpage, you know my horror stories in dealing with their customer "service", although, like I said, they are getting better now that they are outsourcing all administrative duties.
As for buying from Merrill Lynch, I don't think you can. A whole lot of fund companies don't list WWWFX as an option. I found out the hard way when I was at Quickwaynet.com (Quick & Reilly) and E*Trade apparently doesn't recognize this fund either (which shocks me). The Internet Fund Hompage lists the 5 major brokers that offer shares.
Anyway, the big advantage of this particular fund is that it is no load. So you pay no charge if you purchase shares directly with the fund BUT can pay potentially huge charges if buying through a broker. For example, I regularly purchase $100 of WWWFX and switched to DLJDirect because they offered WWWFX. But much to my horror, they charge $35! That's equivalent to a 35% load!!! Outrageous!!!!
And Merrill charges more than pretty much any broker on the globe. Merrill probably offers Munder NetNEt. NetNet charges a hefty 5% load, which pays for commissions that get them a lot of recommendations from major brokers.
Munder NetNet is a good fund. But they buy a ton of stuff that's peripheral to the emergence of the Net as the dominant mass medium rather than going for the throat with pure plays like WWWFX. But WWWFX has diversified quite a bit with their recent foray into the telecomm sector.
Well, gotta go..
- Netconductor.com
Tony wrote:
I'm a little late to every party, this one included. But the idea hit me last week,,maybe I
should jaz my portfolio a bit with an Internet Fund. Then I found this thread. It looked
like it died mid-Feb.
I did manage to get a call through to wwwfx this morning. They said they would send
me a kit and I could buy shares with a personal check. I asked if I could buy shares
through Merril Lynch (my broker) and the guy could not answer my question. He told
me to check with my broker. That seems a little strange to me. I also dicovered the
Munder Net-Net Fund. This isn't as pure as wwwfx but the firm seems a little more,
should I say, mature?
I would be interested any comments you may have on entering a position in either of
these funds. Tony |
