Remarks of Paul Roye Media Briefing on Mutual Fund Cost Calculator April 6, 1999 Costs have a dramatic effect on a mutual fund investor's return. A 1% annual fee, for example, will reduce an ending account balance by 18% on an investment held for 20 years. For that reason, the Commission has long required that mutual fund fees and charges be fully disclosed so that investors can make informed investment decisions. Since 1988, every mutual fund prospectus has been required to include a fee table -- a uniform, tabular presentation that shows the fees and charges associated with a mutual fund investment. We have found, though, that there is a gap between the widespread availability of mutual fund cost information in the fee table and investors' ability to use that information effectively. Investors are often stumped when they try to answer questions like: I am planning to retire in 20 years. Am I better off buying a no-load fund with annual expenses of 1.5% or a fund with a front-end sales charge of 3.5% and annual expenses of 0.90%? And what if I decide to retire in 15 years rather than 20 years? The Cost Calculator is designed to answer questions like these -- to close the gap between the fee table and investors' ability to use the fee table information to make a real-world investment decision. Using the Cost Calculator, an investor can sit down with the prospectus for a fund he or she is considering and compute the effect of fund costs over the period the investor expects to hold the fund -- in dollars and cents. And the investor can compare that dollars and cents number to the dollars and cents number for another fund. But costs are not the whole story in making a mutual fund investment decision. Investors need to consider many other factors as well, including the investor's time horizon, the types of securities a fund holds, the risks of the fund, the investor's need for diversification, the fund company and portfolio manager who run the fund, the fund's past performance, and the services offered by the fund. But costs are a very important part of the investment equation, and the Cost Calculator should make that part of the equation more understandable. Now, we'll turn to Nancy Smith and Erik Sirri, whose office developed the Cost Calculator, to demonstrate how it works.