Investors always aim to make the best out of their total invested capital. Although choosing mutual funds with best returns is the principal goal of investors, they also aim to reduce their expenses while buying or selling funds. Due to this reason, no-load funds with low expense ratios are always targeted. In the first quarter, markets registered stable gains, but a weak March remained a concern for investors.

That’s when no-load mutual funds were once again in the limelight. Mutual funds with no sales or commission charges are known as no-load funds. This generally happens when funds are traded directly through the investment company and not through some secondary entity.

Further, smooth gains in first quarter lifted investors’ spirits. The three key U.S. indexes, the Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq climbed 4.6%, 5.5% and 9.8%, respectively, in the first quarter. The Dow registered gains for six straight quarters, marking its longest stretch of gains since the last quarter of 2006. The S&P 500 also posted six consecutive quarterly increases and registered its strongest first-quarter performance since 2013. The tech-based index Nasdaq reported its best quarterly gain since the fourth quarter of 2013.

However, U.S. oil prices recorded the worst quarterly loss of 5.7% in the first quarter of 2017 since late 2015, pressured by oversupply of crude in the global market. The energy sector slumped 7.7% and was the worst performer among the S&P 500 sectors. Uncertainty over President Trump’s implementation of his economic policies also weighed on investor sentiment. Following these uncertainties, no-load funds along with low expense ratio could be a hit among investors, who want to bet on low-cost mutual funds.

Comparative Performance of No-Load Funds

Here, we have compared the average year-to-date (YTD) return of the top 100 no-load funds with the top 100 load funds. Out of the total 5,006 non-load funds, the top 100 funds registered an average YTD return of 14.7%, whereas from 2,047 load funds, the top 100 funds posted an average YTD return of 13.3%.