22/03/2024
What is a MUTUAL FUND?
A mutual fund is an investment vehicle that pools together the funds of various investors---both individuals and corporations. The pool of funds is managed by a professional fund manager who uses the funds to create a diversified investment portfolio consisting of various investment instruments such as stocks and bonds.
STRENGTH IN NUMBERS: THE BENEFITS OF MUTUAL FUND INVESTING
The power of a mutual fund lies in its ability to pool together funds from so many different investors. Imagine a thousand investors each with P5,000 to invest who decide to pool their funds together. That’s already a pool of P5 million! Now imagine that instead of just investing P5,000 each, some investors put in P10,000, P100,000 or even P1,000,000. The size of the collective pool would even be bigger. And when it comes to investing, there is strength in numbers. P5,000,000 can gain better access to more diversified investment instruments than P5,000.
A mutual fund is a vehicle that allows investors to combine their resources. Because of this, you don’t need a large amount of money to gain access to a well-diversified portfolio of top-performing investments. A mutual fund makes this possible. Here are some of the key benefits of investing in mutual funds.
Professional Management
A mutual fund is managed by an experienced, full-time fund manager who is focused solely on analyzing the financial markets and seizing market opportunities as they present themselves. By investing in a mutual fund, you benefit from the fund manager’s experience and market insight.
Potentially Higher Returns
By pooling together the funds of thousands of investors, a mutual fund is able to access potentially higher yielding investments that require large minimum investment amounts. Thus, investors are able to access potentially higher yields that may not normally be available to them due to the size of their individual funds. Moreover, the fund manager ensures that the mutual fund generates the best possible returns for the given level of risk of the mutual fund.
Diversification
Simply put, diversification means not putting all your eggs in one basket. This is especially important in investing. Through proper diversification, losses in one investment can be off-set by gains in another. In the process, overall risk is minimized. Investing in a mutual fund provides you with immediate access to a diversified portfolio of funds. By virtue of the size of the pool of funds, the mutual fund is able to purchase many different investment securities and diversify.
Liquidity
You may have your shares in a mutual fund redeemed at any time and just need to wait a maximum of seven (7) banking days to gain access to your funds.
Safety
Mutual fund operations are governed by the Investment Company Act whose implementing rules and regulations specify particular limits and constraints in the investment activities of all mutual funds. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sees to it that all mutual funds comply with these statutory regulations. Moreover, mutual fund companies are regularly audited by an independent auditor. The assets of the mutual fund are held by a third-party custodian bank.
We can open a Mutual Fund account with just P1,000.
But DID YOU KNOW that if you are an IMG Member, you can invest in Mutuals Funds WITHOUT the 2% to 5% SALES LOAD normally charged by mutual fund companies? That's a savings between P2,000 to P5,000 for every P100,000 investment.
Click Here to See All the IMG Membership Benefits.
