Episode 18: My Story with the New Fund Category (The Fund Award Survey)

A Category That Felt Misaligned

The next section I turned my eyes to in the Fund Award survey was the New Fund Category.

Looking over the nominated funds, my initial reaction was a slight sense of misalignment.

This was because many "payout-type" (distribution-paying) high-dividend equity funds from Rakuten Investment Management were lined up together.

For a long time, I had heard that payout-type funds are generally not ideal for long-term investing.

Long-term investing relies heavily on the premise of maximizing compounding effects.
With payout-type funds that distribute dividends along the way, those compounding effects cannot be fully leveraged.

At the very least, it did not align with my own personal asset building and wealth management policy.

To be perfectly honest, I was right on the verge of skipping my response for this specific category altogether.

The Fund That Caught My Eye

Yet, right in the middle of that list, there was a single fund that made me pause: Tracers NASDAQ100 Gold Plus.

It felt like a sibling fund to the Tracers S&P500 Gold Plus that had been nominated in the High-Return Category.

The underlying index wasn't the S&P500, but rather the NASDAQ100—an index inherently characterized by higher risks and higher rewards. On top of that, it utilized leverage.

It was a fund that took high-risk, high-return dynamics and sharpened them even further.

Ultimately, I cast my vote for this fund.

Not because it's something I would blindly recommend to everyone. Rather, it was because I felt I could deeply understand and respect its core design philosophy.

When the final results were announced, Tracers NASDAQ100 Gold Plus had secured 2nd place in the rankings.

Honestly, it made me happy.

This didn't necessarily mean my personal judgment was "right."

It was just that the simple realization that there were many other people out there in the world sharing the exact same mindset was incredibly reassuring.

New funds hold unique dreams and possibilities. At the exact same time, they require a measured sense of distance.

Not getting too close, yet never completely ignoring them either. That is exactly how I choose to face them right now.

Takeaway from this Episode

While brand-new funds carry plenty of charm and potential, they also demand a strong sense of caution. The most critical factor isn't their popularity or social media hype, but whether their core design philosophy genuinely meshes with your personal values and long-term investment strategy. Maintaining a proper distance—neither getting too close nor ignoring them entirely—creates the steady mindset required to anchor long-term investing.