Reading Price Quotations

Reading Price Quotations The price of most mutual fund shares can be found in many newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal. The listings for closed-end funds are contained in the stock quotation section. The listings for open-end funds are separate, and are organized by the name of the fund family as illustrated in the accompanying chart of fictitious companies. An explanation of how to read the chart follows.

1 The first column is the abbreviated name of the fund. Several funds listed under a single heading indicate a family of funds.

2 The second column is the Net Asset Value (NAV) per share as of the close of the preceding business day. In some newspapers, the NAV is identified as the "bid price"—the amount (per share) you would receive if you had redeemed your shares that day (less any deferred sales charges). Each mutual fund determines its net asset value every business day by dividing the market value of its total assets, less liabilities, buy the number of shares owned by the investors. On any given day, you can determine the value of your holdings by multiplying the NAV by the number of shares you own.

3 The third column is the offering price or, in some papers, the "ask price"—the price you would have paid if you had purchased shares that day. The offering price is the NAV plus any sales charges. If there are no sales charges, and "NL" for "no-load" appears in this column, and the offering price is the same as the NAV. To figure the sales charge percentage, divide the difference between the NAV and the offering price by the offering price. Here, for instance, the sales charge is 7.2% ($14.52-$13.47=$1.05 divided by $14.52=0.072 or 7.2%).

4 The fourth column shows the change, if any, in net asset value from the preceding quotation—in other words, the change over the most recent one-day trading period. This fund, for example, gained eight cents per share.

Other abbreviations in these columns indicate important information about specific funds. The abbreviations are usually explained in a "key" at the beginning or end of the columns.