In recent times the world has been shaken by financial crises, often caused by speculation and the short sight of investors. Although the hunger for high returns still is prominent in today's investment society, these crises seem to mark a turning point in the thinking of the people. This work tries to give fund investors, both beginners and advanced ones, the statistical tools to answer the basic "Which funds are safe and have a good chance to produce high returns (relative to the risks taken)?" This is done by analyzing the historical price development using basic as well as highly sophisticated statistical methods. Each method is accompanied by an example with source code using the free statistical software R.
