Unit trust

What Is Wrong with Mutual Funds? Fees, Earnings, and Structure of the Industry (2006)

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• published: 28 Jul 2013
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A mutual fund is a type of professionally managed collective investment vehicle that pools money from many investors to purchase securities. While there is no legal definition of the term "mutual fund", it is most commonly applied only to those collective investment vehicles that are regulated and sold to the general public. They are sometimes referred to as "investment companies" or "registered investment companies." Most mutual funds are "open-ended," meaning investors can buy or sell shares of the fund at any time. Hedge funds are not considered a type of mutual fund. The term mutual fund is less widely used outside of the United States and Canada. For collective investment vehicles outside of the United States, see articles on specific types of funds including open-ended investment companies, SICAVs, unitized insurance funds, unit trusts and Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities, which are usually referred to by their acronym UCITS. In the United States, mutual funds must be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, overseen by a board of directors (or board of trustees if organized as a trust rather than a corporation or partnership) and managed by a registered investment adviser. Mutual funds are not taxed on their income and profits if they comply with certain requirements under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Mutual funds have both advantages and disadvantages compared to direct investing in individual securities. They have a long history in the United States. Today they play an important role in household finances, most notably in retirement planning. There are 3 types of U.S. mutual funds: open-end, unit investment trust, and closed-end. The most common type, the open-end fund, must be willing to buy back shares from investors every business day. Exchange-traded funds (or "ETFs" for short) are open-end funds or unit investment trusts that trade on an exchange. Open-end funds are most common, but exchange-traded funds have been gaining in popularity. Mutual funds are generally classified by their principal investments. The four main categories of funds are money market funds, bond or fixed income funds, stock or equity funds and hybrid funds. Funds may also be categorized as index or actively managed. Investors in a mutual fund pay the fund's expenses, which reduce the fund's returns/performance. There is controversy about the level of these expenses. A single mutual fund may give investors a choice of different combinations of expenses (which may include sales commissions or loads) by offering several different types of share classes. In the US, a mutual fund is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and is overseen by a board of directors (if organized as a corporation) or board of trustees (if organized as a trust). The board is charged with ensuring that the fund is managed in the best interests of the fund's investors and with hiring the fund manager and other service providers to the fund. The fund manager, also known as the fund sponsor or fund management company, trades (buys and sells) the fund's investments in accordance with the fund's investment objective. A fund manager must be a registered investment advisor. Funds that are managed by the same fund manager and that have the same brand name are known as a "fund family" or "fund complex". Mutual funds are not taxed on their income and profits as long as they comply with requirements established in the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Specifically, they must diversify their investments, limit ownership of voting securities, distribute a high percentage of their income and capital gains (net of capital losses) to their investors annually, and earn most of the income by investing in securities and currencies.[2] Mutual funds pass taxable income on to their investors by paying out dividends and capital gains at least annually. The characterization of that income is unchanged as it passes through to the shareholders. For example, mutual fund distributions of dividend income are reported as dividend income by the investor. There is an exception: net losses incurred by a mutual fund are not distributed or passed through to fund investors but are retained by the fund to be able to offset future gains. Mutual funds may invest in many kinds of securities. The types of securities that a particular fund may invest in are set forth in the fund's prospectus, which describes the fund's investment objective, investment approach and permitted investments. The investment objective describes the type of income that the fund seeks. For example, a "capital appreciation" fund generally looks to earn most of its returns from increases in the prices of the securities it holds, rather than from dividend or interest income. The investment approach describes the criteria that the fund manager uses to select investments for the fund. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_funds