<prompt> Human: Im new to investing and am looking to open my first IRA. I heard good things about Vanguard and was looking at their 2055 Retirement fund VFFVX because Im 23, but my sister said a financial adviser was suggesting these other funds. Links here: 1. Vanguard 2055 Retirement fund VFFVX2. First Eagle Global Fund 3. Berwyn FundWhat Im seeing is that the Vanguard fund has a ten year return of 6-8 based on their similar 2025 and 2035 funds. The funds from the other firms have 10 year returns of over 11. I know that Vanguard has a much lower expense ratio by about 1, but otherwise I dont see why Vanguard would be better. And maybe it isnt! Can someone with more experience take a look at these funds, compare, tell me the pros and cons, and see if Im missing anything? Thanks a lot.Assistant: Do you even know what a lifestrategy fund is? You dont compare a lifestrategy fund to anything other than a lifestrategy fund for the same year from another company.Taking a previous cycles lifestrategy fund and using it as an estimator of how a future lifestrategy fund will perform doesnt even make any sense--in fact it doesnt even make sense to do this for the past performance of any fund.To go into detail, First Eagle Global FundSure this fund seems to have performed well in the past. But past performance is no guarantee of future results. Moreover, this fund charges a load 3.75. It has a high expense ratio 1.15. And it has severely underperformed the index to which it is pegged this year. Berwyn FundNo load fund, and its done quite well for the past year. But not any better than an Extended Market Index Fund, which would have been cheaper in terms of expenses.You can make a pricey gamble and hope your bet outperforms the market. Or you can invest in the market and not worry about coming out on top. Your choice.Human: No, I didnt recognize or understand the lifestrategy fund. Thank you for clarifying. As I said, Im new to this stuff. Can you explain what the 3.75 load charge is? Is it as significant as the expense ratio or not? I guess your point is that instead of going with a fund that tries to beat the market, its wiser to invest in a fund that matches the market and has low expenses. Is that a decent summary?Also, would your opinion about these funds change if I wanted to use them for shorter-term investing 5-7 years instead of retirement?  <response>: A load fee is usually paid to the broker who you purchase the funds through. A 3.75 load means that only 96.25 of the money you spend will go toward purchasing funds, the rest will go to the broker. Additionally, youll pay 1.15 of the total value in your account not of the gains, but the total balance each year to the broker the expense ratio. 