"Five Mutual Funds You Can Afford" According to Essence Magazine

Essence had a pretty good financial article this month titled, "Five Mutual Funds You Can Afford" Here are the five:

Van Kampent Comstock (ACSTX): Made up of large, well established firms, you can invest without going through a broker, best for conservative investors, 5 year performance is at 14.47%

Mutual Beacon (TEBIX): Combines stocks of large and medium size media and telecommunications as wellas financial services companies. you can investt without going through a broker. 5 year performance is at 14.86%

American Balanced (ABALX):balanced fund with stocks and a 30-40 percent investment in bods to reduce risk. invests in pharmaceuticals, computers and sconsumavle fuels. you must open an account with a financial advisor. Conservative. 5 year performance is at 10.70%

Templeton World (TEMWX): Global fundd that invests in both U.S. and overseas stocks with hoding in media and software companies. You can invest without going through a broker. Moderately aggresive. 5 year performance is at 16.32%

The Hartford Capital Appreciation (ITHAX): Aggresive fun with investments in information technology, energy and industrials. Focuses on stocks that appreciate quickly; must invest through a financial advisor. Aggressive Investors, 5 yr. performance 19.87%.

According to My Money Blog, a Roth IRA can in fact be used as an emergency fund. The only thing is. No one wants to play with thier Emergency Fund, right? It's not a savings account so the possibility of losing the money is a lot higher. I currently put a little over 10% of my income into a savings account. Unfortunately, I'm always loaning it out. and thus, I always lose it and when people give me my money back somehow it never ends up back into my savings account.

So although, the chance of losing my money is higher by putting it into an Roth IRA the chance of me not loaning it out to a member of my family (and thus losing it) will be less likely. And there is also the saying "Thou must max out your Roth IRA contribution" So, I am going to take a baby step and divert $50 from my emergency fund(the suggestion in the magazine article) into one of the suggested funds that I do not have to open through a financial advisor.

But of course I have do my research, right?

Unfortunatley, the article does not list the fees associated with the funds.
And, can I invest in the fund from a Sharebuilder or Zecco account?