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Nevertheless, some critics insist that buying a mutual fund is just buying a piece of the Dow-Jones industrial average, point out that the top five common stock funds just kept pace with the averages in the seven-year bull market. But Broker Arthur Weisenberger, the Boswell of the industry, whose brokerage house puts out the definitive yearbook of the funds, argues that an investor could pick a slow mover even in the stocks in the blue-chip Dow-Jones averages. Only 14 of the 30 stocks have done as well as the 229% gain in the averages in the last ten years.
Hefty Charge. For years brokerage houses avoided the funds like the plague, fearful that they would hurt regular brokerage business. But most of them have come around. Main holdout: Manhattan's huge Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, which has never even deigned to mention the funds' existence in its financial letter.
The biggest attraction of the mutual fund to dealers and salesmen alike is the hefty "load" charge, or commission, usually 71% to 81% (compared with the 1% commission for round-lot purchases on the New York Stock Exchange). Many a customer howls when told of it. But the funds have a quick rejoinder: they argue that the charge includes the cost of selling out as well as buying, is the price of broad diversification and professional management. If an investor with $4,200 (the average size of a mutual fund holding) tried to buy a diversified portfolio of stocks on the New York Stock Exchange, claim the funds, he would easily have to pay 8% to get in and out of the market.
Buying a Hat. Attracted by such fancy pickings, an army of more than 20,000 full-time and part-time mutual fund salesmen, ranging from schoolteachers to bartenders, are selling fund shares. Many of them know no more than their customers about the market, depend on a fast spiel and reams of charts to do their selling. Yet a good part-time salesman can make $10,000 or $15,000 a year in commissions, full-time salesmen up to $25,000. Says Miss Irma Bender, a top fund salesman for Cleveland's Joseph, Mellen & Miller: "I tell prospects that investing in funds is as easy as buying a hat."
The funds have become so popular that they have blossomed with all kinds of new plans. The most controversial plan—and one that M.I.T. has shunned—is the contractual plan, under which a customer signs for regular monthly payments over a period of years (usually ten). The catch is that an investor who puts in $1,200 for the first year of a $100-a-month ten-year contractual plan is docked for about $500, or half the entire ten-year commission, in the first year. If the investor drops out in the first year, he loses most of his $500. The funds claim that this big "front-end load" is an incentive to steady saving, but some funds think that such juicy commissions are completely unjustified. Says John Dalenz, vice president of Calvin Bullock, Ltd.: "Why not give those salesmen a blackjack and let them take your entire wallet?"