The Mutual Fund
At a basic level, mutual funds are nothing more than a collection of stocks and bonds. A mutual fund primarily focuses on bringing groups of people together to invest their money into bonds, stocks, and other different securities. It’s important to know that each of these gathered investors owns shares that ultimately make up a portion of the holdings in the total fund. Once a person invests into these stocks, bonds, or securities through the mutual fund they can make money in three different ways. One being if the fund sells a security that increases in price then it has a capital gain. If a capital gain occurs then most funds forward these gains to investors in a distribution. Another way investors make money through mutual funds is if fund holdings’ price rises but is not sold by the fund manager. The fund’s shares increase and one can sell their mutual fund shares for a profit. The third way an investor can make a profit is when income is earned from the interest on bonds and from the dividend on stocks. The fund pays out almost all of the income it receives throughout the year to fund owners in a distribution. Mutual funds not only have great benefits on a profitable level but also have many other perks to them. Most importantly, mutual funds provide professional management of the investors’ money. Most investors purchase funds because they either don’t have the time or the expertise to thoroughly manage their own portfolios. This is a great way for small time investors to inexpensively have their investments monitored professionally and efficiently. Also, because mutual funds buy and sell large amounts of securities at a time its costs are lower than what someone would pay for security transactions. One perk that stands out to many investors is the large scale of diversification a mutual fund possesses. Owning shares in a mutual fund