An investment fund that holds the objective to earn interest for shareholders while maintaining a net asset value (NAV) of $1 per share. Mutual funds, brokerage firms and banks offer these funds. Portfolios are comprised of short-term (less than one year) securities representing high-quality, liquid debt and monetary instruments. A money market fund's purpose is to provide investors with a safe place to invest easily accessible cash-equivalent assets characterized as a low-risk, low-return investment. Because of their relatively low returns, investors, such as those participating in employer-sponsored retirement plans, might not want to use money market funds as a long-term investment option.
A legal, but frowned-upon practice, whereby traders attempt to gain short-term profits from buying and selling mutual funds to benefit from the differences between the daily closing prices.Don't confuse market timing with mutual fund timing. Market timing is a very acceptable practice of trying to predict the best time to buy and sell stocks. Watch: Mutual Funds Mutual fund timing has a negative effect on a fund's long-term investors, as they will be subjected to higher fees due to the transaction costs of the short-term trading. In order to prevent this practice, most mutual funds impose a stiff short-term trading penalty, known as a redemption fee, upon the sale of funds that are not held for a minimum period of time, which generally ranges from 90 days to one year.In September of 2003, some mutual fund companies were investigated for permitting hedge funds to "time" mutual funds purchases. These hedge funds paid the mutual fund companies money for the right to buy and sell funds on a short-term basis without any short-term penalties.
A money manager who works outside of the fund, and is hired by a fund manager to help with an investment portfolio. These subadvisors are allowed to manage all or some of a fund's assets, and usually are given a set of investment objectives to adhere to when selecting securities. Watch: Mutual Funds Mutual fund subadvisors usually head teams of smaller, more specialized investment firms. They are hired because of their expertise using specific securities in various industries. For fund managers, the benefit of using subadvisors is that they allow funds to tap talent that is not available in-house.Investors should be aware of the fees the fund must pay to subadvisors. These fees could be charged to shareholders over and above any fees that already exist. These fees may take away value from a shareholder's investment.
A ratio published monthly by the Investment Company Institute that compares the amount of cash relative to total assets held by a mutual fund. Equity investors use the mutual fund liquidity ratio to gauge the demand for shares and the bullishness or bearishness of portfolio managers. Watch: Mutual Funds For example, if a mutual fund is sitting on a large amount of cash, the theory is that it is doing so because it is hard pressed to find quality investment opportunities; therefore, it has a bearish sentiment toward the market. Conversely, if a mutual fund is highly invested and has a very small amount of cash on hand, the theory is that it has found some excellent investing opportunities and is taking advantage of these opportunities by being nearly fully invested - that is to say, it is bullish.
A trust company, bank or similar financial institution responsible for holding and safeguarding the securities owned within a mutual fund. A mutual fund's custodian may also act as the mutual fund's transfer agent, maintaining records of shareholder transactions and balances.Also referred to as a "mutual fund corporation". Watch: Mutual Funds Since a mutual fund is essentially a large pool of funds from many different investors, it requires a third-party custodian to hold and safeguard the securities that are mutually owned by all the fund's investors. This structure mitigates the risk of dishonest activity by separating the fund managers from the physical securities and investor records.
The percentage of a mutual fund's total assets that are currently held in cash or cash equivalents. While mutual fund cash level can refer to the cash level of an individual fund, it most often refers to the aggregate level of cash held across a wide demographic of mutual funds, which is used as a barometer of institutional buying power and market sentiment. Watch: Mutual Funds Most mutual funds need to keep around 5% cash available at all times in order to handle the day-to-day redemptions of shares. Cash levels outside of this range can signal a collective sense of fear or optimism about the broad markets. For instance, if aggregate mutual fund cash levels are above 10%, this would signal that fund managers are generally bearish about the market and holding back on making new purchases. On the other hand, cash levels in the range of 5-8% would signal a generally bullish stance, as most available cash is being put to work in the market. Some investors view mutual fund cash levels as a contrarian indicator, as cash levels generally reach their peak at market bottoms.
A type of investment account that allows access by several specialized investment managers within one main account. The account is split into several sub-accounts that are separately run by managers with relevant expertise. The multi-discipline account provides investors with an efficient way to get professional investment management and asset diversification. It is also referred to as a "multi-style" and "multi-strategy account". These type of investment accounts were created as an alternative to separately managed accounts that have only one type of management expertise and make it more difficult to diversify. Generally the minimum amount needed to invest in a separately managed account is around $100,000 while the minimum for a multi-discipline account is $150,000. So, with the separately managed account, if an investor wanted to split assets into 60% equity and 40% fixed income, he or she would need to open two separately managed accounts and would need at minimum $200,000. With the multi-discipline account, however, the investor needs only to open the one account, requiring only a total of $150,000, and separate the assets into two sub-accounts.
A mutual fund in which shares are sold without a commission or sales charge. The reason for this is that the shares are distributed directly by the investment company, instead of going through a secondary party. This is the opposite of a load fund, which charges a commission at the time of the fund's purchase, at the time of its sale, or as a "level-load" for as long as the investor holds the fund. Because there is no transaction cost to purchase a no-load fund, all of the money invested is working for the investor. For example, if you purchase $10,000 worth of a no-load mutual fund, all $10,000 will be invested into the fund. On the other hand, if you buy a load fund that charges a front-end load (sales commission) of 5%, the amount actually invested in the fund is only $9,500. If the load is back-ended, when shares of the fund are sold, the $500 sales commission comes out of the proceeds. If the level-load (12b-1 fee) is 1%, your fund balance will be charged $100 annually for as long as you own the fund.The justification for a load fund is that investors are compensating a sales intermediary (broker, financial planner, investment advisor, etc.) for his or her time and expertise in selecting an appropriate fund.It should be noted that research shows that load funds don't outperform no-load funds.