Have you ever noticed how hard it is to compare mutual funds? It appears that the whole system is set up to prevent you from finding the information you need.

Just little things, like showing the expenses separate from the returns. And if you want to see the dividends, too bad.

Look at this graph for an example. It shows a fund that I have my kid's college fund invested in. Notice that huge drop on Dec 20, 2006. The fund fell from 49.68 to 43.84, sound scary right. Well it would be except that the fund paid a $6.071 dividend that same day. According to Quicken, in the 3 years that I have had money invested in that fund I have seen it fall 14.16% for a total return on investment of +13.53% WHAT???

Yes, that is correct. The fund has dropped in value 14% while paying dividends of 27.5% for a net gain of 13.5%. (That is total gain not 13% per year, don't run out and buy this fund quite yet.)

How would I have ever known this if I was just comparing charts or statistics?

There has got to be a better way.