Retirement Group’s Funds Not A Big Seller Yet

Retirement lobby AARP launched three no-load mutual funds for its membership early this year, but so far they haven’t taken its members by storm. According to Investment News, citing figures from Financial Research Corp., the AARP Aggressive Fund, the AASR Conservative Fund and the AARP Moderate Fund had attracted a combined $26 million at the end of June. Observers suggest one of the reasons for the performance is that all three are “life-stage funds,” and the AARP was late in entering a field already populated with well-established players, such as The Vanguard Group, which offers competitively prices similar products. While market watchers say the performance is disappointing, an AARP spokeswoman told Investment News that it didn’t expect to have attracted lots of money at this point.