24-hour phone lines

You don’t need to wait for a quarterly statement to get answers about your mutual fund account. Today, most fund families make information about your account as near as your telephone.
Some major fund families offer 24-hour phone lines staffed by real human beings — a welcome convenience for the millions of investors who find themselves living such busy lives that the only time they have to check their investments may be at 11:00 on a Wednesday night or 8:30 Sunday morning. Other fund families have phone lines with live representatives only during business hours; however, they usually provide a 24-hour automated response phone system that gives you access to your account balance and the current NAV of your shares and enables you to make exchanges between funds simply by using your telephone keypad. Your own coded personal identification number (PIN) protects your privacy, so only you can access the account.
On occasion, you may need to open a mutual fund account in a hurry. For example, you may want to make a qualifying IRA deposit on April 15 so that you meet the annual deadline for saving on your taxes.
Many mutual fund companies are willing to let you open an account and make a deposit by phone, even without a completed application on file, provided you submit the application soon thereafter. Call the fund of your choice, explain the situation, and provide the information the company requests, including the number of your bank account where the necessary investment money is on deposit. Then have your bank wire the money to the fund.