How can I find a good investment?

It is often wise to do a side-by-side comparison of two, three or more investments. One way to review similar investments is to look at their performance over a set time period. This tool lets the investor do this with ETFs. The CAGR is the “compound annual growth rate.”

Fidelity Investments’ ETF screener makes it possible to view other important data elements. The bare minimum fields I want to see are the expense ratio, the total assets, the dividend yield, the turnover ratio and the number of holdings in the ETF. The “turnover ratio” tells you what percent of the holdings are changing over time. In my view, I prefer a lower number for most investments with a long-term focus. REM is an interesting option for other reasons. REM is unlike the other four in at least one critical factor. It is a mortgage REIT. There may be greater risks with mortgage-based real estate investments.