You buy a mutual fund so that you don’t have to make investment decisions yourself. But you want to make sure they people you hire are doing what you’re paying them to do. If you buy a large value fund, you want the manager to buy large value stocks. But sometimes a manager in an attempt to beat the averages will step outside the expected parameters. That’s called ‘style drift’ when a manager buys inappropriate stocks for his/her mutual fund.
Fortunately it’s easy to check to see if the manager is toeing the line without having to become an investment expert. Visit the finance section of Yahoo.com. In the top left of the page you can type in the name of your mutual fund. Once it displays click on ‘Holdings’ which displays the top 10 positions in the fund. See if those stocks match the fund’s stated style. If it’s supposed to be a growth fund and it’s chock full of Bank of America stock, the manager is guilty of style drift and you might want to think about making a change.