Topic: How To Invest

Hi Pat: What are your thoughts on Fidelity Monthly Income Fund? Would it be a good candidate to buy?

Article Excerpt

Fidelity Monthly Income Fund is a balanced mutual fund that holds 44.5% of its assets in stocks, 49.7% in bonds and 5.7% in cash. We don’t currently recommend balanced funds, which hold both stocks and bonds. That’s because bonds are unlikely to perform as well in the next few years as they have in the past, mainly because interest rates will likely hold steady or rise. (Bond prices and interest rates are inversely linked. When interest rates go up, bond prices go down, and vice versa.) That means the fund would only earn interest income on its bonds; instead of capital gains, its bond holdings could produce capital losses. We don’t recommend the Fidelity Monthly Income Fund. Fund…