A funny thing happened when I got back to the office after a week of attending the Center for Due Diligence annual conference (and what a great show that was – if you missed it, you missed out). During my five days in San Antonio, the market blew up. Well, technically, it blew down – way down – but that's not how the expression goes. Of course, as I like to say whenever someone asks me where my office is located, "My office is wherever my laptop happens to be plugged in." So I was able to monitor events on Wall Street in real time. Was I worried? On the contrary, I was excited, but that's a story for a different time. 

Here's the story (or at least the teaser) for this time. When I returned to the galactic headquarters of my boutique firm, I went to my desktop to update information from my laptop. What I noticed surprised me, (albeit pleasantly, as in, "I love it when a plan works.") Despite the horrific week for the market, (the S&P was down considerably), my mutual fund was actually higher when I put in the day's closing NAV on Monday than what it was on the day I left.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not bragging about my fund (chances are 49 out of 50 you can't even purchase it due to the state you're residing in). Rather, I bring it up as the major flaw in the misconception that low expense ratio funds are better than high expense ratio funds. Even if I were to concede that happens most of the time, the flaw is that it doesn't happen all of the time.