American middle socio-economic class has earned great benefits because of the introduction of no-load mutual funds. Only financially well stable people were able to create investment portfolios because developing a portfolio required high investment and the most egregious of this investment was loaded mutual funds investment.
Considering this scenario, investment companies realized that there is a substantial potential in the middle class segment as well. In the past, people had to pay charges named as loads to invest in mutual funds. The value of loads was in the range of 4% to 8% on the total investment. This did not seem interesting by any means, because to pay an amount of 8% as front load the companies would have to earn at least more than 8% to make profits.
The two most common kinds of sales load include front and back end load, they are also called primary forms. Although there are several types of load but they need to be avoided. The two primary forms are:
• Front-end loads:
Whenever you purchase a mutual fund front load need to be paid front. At the time of purchase, the sales commission is made known therefore you know the amount you are paying as commission.
• Back-end loads
Back end loads are considered to be more dangerous than the front end loads as in this kind of load, you have to pay only when you sell, hence for this reason you do not know at the time of purchase that how much you will be obliged at the time when you will be selling it. It is highly dependent on the performance of the fund. Therefore, this motivates an investor to invest in top performing fund. However when you analyze carefully, this statement proves to be wrong as the compound interest back end load will probably finish up several times than that of an equivalent to front end load and for this reason buyer needs to be careful.
The main difference between no load funds is that no commission is involved during the purchase or sale. Thus it will be then right to say that sales load should be avoided at all cost, as it useless to give your hard earned money to a salesman when it is more profitable for you to invest in a no load mutual funds.
Many mutual fund companies market no load funds directly or they offer via discount houses such as Fidelity, Schwab etc. Some of the top no load mutual funds are:
• Oceanstone Fund
• Van Eck Intl Investors Gold I
• Dreyfus International Bond I
• Fidelity Select Gold
• Robeco Long/Short Eq I


There are lots of advantages to invest in no load mutual funds. The top no load mutual funds perform much better than many well performing loaded funds and therefore it is advisable to invest in no load funds.