The Mutual Fund Series: Oppenheimer Funds
This is a continuation of The Mutual Fund Series here on JosephSangl.com.
During each part of this weekly series, we will be looking at a specific mutual fund company.
Today’s company is Oppenheimer Funds.
Oppenheimer Funds is an asset management company with headquarters in New York, NY, with $255 billion of currently managed assets. Founded in 1960, Oppenheimer Funds was affiliated with the brokerage firm Oppenheimer & Company, Inc. However, Oppenheimer Funds is now owned by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (Mass Mutual) and has no corporate ties to Oppenheimer & Co., Inc. or Oppenheimer Capital.
What I Like About Oppenheimer Funds
- Diversification – Oppenheimer Funds offer 12 types of mutual funds for investors: global, growth, large growth, value, quantitative, portfolio solutions, taxable bond, municipal bond, specialty, money market, cash reserves and institutional. However, Oppenheimer Funds has become well-known for their niche with bond funds in the mutual bond market.
- Variety of Products and Services – Oppenheimer Funds offer other products and services, such as IRA’s (Roth and Traditional), 403(b), 401(k), 529 college plans, and Coverdell ESA’s.
- Award Winning Website – www.oppenheimerfunds.com was designated as Excellent by DALBAR in 2009 for the websites functionality and usability.
What I Would Like To See Improved
- Minimum Investment Required – The minimum investment for OppenheimerFunds is $1000, which is the same as Franklin Templeton: not as high as some mutual funds, but you could find it lower elsewhere.
- Front-End Load Funds – Many of Oppenheimer Funds’ top rated mutual funds by Morningstar carry large front-end loads of 3.50% to 5.75%, which will start off your investment with a 3.50% to 5.75% LOSS! Even worse, only 8.7% of Oppenheimer Funds’ assets are no-load funds.
- Fund Performance – Oppenheimer Funds owns several five-star and four-star mutual funds as of February 2009, which are excellent ratings; however, the company’s municipal and taxable bond funds have recently experienced poor performance.
Oppenheimer Mutual Funds I Own
I do not currently own any Oppenheimer mutual funds.
Oppenheimer Mutual Fund To Look At
- Oppenheimer Equity Fund Inc. [Ticker: OEQAX] – This mutual fund’s inception date was October 2, 1947 with a focus on investments in medium to large-capitalization companies. The fund has assets of $1.62 billion, an average annual return of 9.54% since inception, and an expense ratio of 1.03%.
Read about other mutual fund companies
NOTE: Clemson student Anna Briscoe, a senior majoring in Economics with a minor in Financial Management has been so gracious to research and write the majority of this post.