What is the best mutual fund?

I am 18 years old and I have around $5,000 to put into a mutual fund(s). I will probably need the money in about 5-8 years to purchase a first home. Obviously, I would like to maximize growth. Any opinions?

Without a crystal ball, the best for the next 5 to 8 years just an educated guess. I can make a guess though. I think the U S will be going through rough sledding during the next 10 years. If that is true then the better opportunities will be overseas. In fact overseas funds have outperformed U S funds for the last 5 years. One fund with an outstanding record is American Funds Capital World Growth & Income Fund. Ten year annual return of 14.5%. Five year annual return of 24.3%. One year annual return of 29.7%. There is a 5.75% front end load with this fund however, but the low expense ratio of 0.7% compensates.

Some of the developing market funds have done much better than this, but they have considerable risk associated with them. T Rowe Price Emerging Markets Stock Ten year annual return 17.6% Five year annual return 35.6%. One year annual return 39.7%. This fund is no load but does have a somewhat high expense ratio of 1.25%. It has also suffered some sever down turns.

there is no such obvious best mutual fund. the priciple is high risk, high return..I suggest you can buy some exchangable traded funds. ETF. it normally tracks the index, good for practice.

Try Scott Trade. They'll invest your money on the top performing companies.

The only catch is that you must keep your money there for 10 years, or withdraw it to purchase your first home.

If you haven't invested in retirement, I suggest you start now.
You're very young, you could have millions (true) by the time you're 65.

Well there is no such thing as the BEST MUTUAL FUND.

The Best Mutual Funds are LOW COST Mutual Funds such as you would find with Vanguard.

I would invest with Low Cost, Passively Managed, Index Funds with mostly Stocks and some Bonds and some International. Vanguard has Target Retirement funds which do this. Most large Mutual Fund Families have something like this. I like Vanguard Because their fees are less.

Good luck Gerry

Choose a well known Mutual Fund Family then divide your investment into 5 of their funds evenly as follows: Large Cap Growth, Large Cap Value, Small Cap Growth, Small Cap Value, International. Please read my profile and send me an email if you need further help.

I would invest in no load mutual funds or low cost index funds such as an S&P 500 index fund. It will outperform most mutual funds and they simply mimmick an index like the S&P 500.