Why investors need to look at 10-year fund performance

Jim Jessee, co-head of global distribution for MFS Investment Management (MFS), argues investors must look well beyond the usual three- or five-year track records for fund managers.

With the bull market running well past five and a half years now, the standard three and five-year performance screens for mutual funds now look really great. Once the calendar turned from February to March 2014, the major losses sustained during the global financial crisis all but dropped out of funds' trailing five-year return figures (the market hit its low in March 2009). But those numbers forget the average economic expansion has been roughly five years in the post-World War II era, and it is hard to tell right now how investors' assets might fare once the bears begin to growl. ...