뮤츄얼 펀드 (Mutual Fund)
뮤추얼 펀드(mutual fund)는 주식회사 방식으로 운영되는 펀드를 뜻한다. 보통 뮤추얼 펀드는 개방식 투자신탁이다.
일반적인 펀드는 계약형이다. 은행에 예금을 하면 이자가 붙고, 예금을 찾고 싶으면(통장을 해지하고 싶으면) 은행에 가서 찾는다. 대부분의 펀드도 이와 비슷하게 투자를 해서 수익이 나면 이익을 나눠 갖게 되고, 투자금을 찾고 싶으면 펀드에서 투자금을 찾으면 된다. 계약을 맺고, 계약을 해지하는 것과 같은 구조다. 물론 은행에 저축한 사람은 은행 운영과는 무관하듯이, 투자한 사람과 투자한 자금이 운영되는 방식과는 상관이 없다.
반면에 뮤추얼 펀드는 주식회사 방식으로 운영된다. 예를 들어 A기업 주식을 A기업에서 매매하는 것이 아니라 증권 거래소에서 사고, 팔듯이, 뮤추얼 펀드도 뮤추얼 펀드에서 매매하는게 아니라 거래소에서 매매한다. 그리고 A기업 주식을 가진 사람은 자신이 가진 지분만큼 A기업 운영에 권리를 가지고 있듯이, 뮤추얼 펀드도 뮤추얼 펀드에 투자한 지분만큼 운영에 대한 권리를 가진다.
출처 : 위키백과
What Is a Mutual Fund?
A mutual fund is a type of financial vehicle made up of a pool of money collected from many investors to invest in securities like stocks, bonds, money market instruments, and other assets. Mutual funds are operated by professional money managers, who allocate the fund's assets and attempt to produce capital gains or income for the fund's investors. A mutual fund's portfolio is structured and maintained to match the investment objectives stated in its prospectus.
Mutual funds give small or individual investors access to professionally managed portfolios of equities, bonds, and other securities. Each shareholder, therefore, participates proportionally in the gains or losses of the fund. Mutual funds invest in a vast number of securities, and performance is usually tracked as the change in the total market cap of the fund—derived by the aggregating performance of the underlying investments.
Understanding Mutual Funds
Mutual funds pool money from the investing public and use that money to buy other securities, usually stocks and bonds. The value of the mutual fund company depends on the performance of the securities it decides to buy. So, when you buy a unit or share of a mutual fund, you are buying the performance of its portfolio or, more precisely, a part of the portfolio's value. Investing in a share of a mutual fund is different from investing in shares of stock. Unlike stock, mutual fund shares do not give its holders any voting rights. A share of a mutual fund represents investments in many different stocks (or other securities) instead of just one holding.
That's why the price of a mutual fund share is referred to as the net asset value (NAV) per share, sometimes expressed as NAVPS. A fund's NAV is derived by dividing the total value of the securities in the portfolio by the total amount of shares outstanding. Outstanding shares are those held by all shareholders, institutional investors, and company officers or insiders. Mutual fund shares can typically be purchased or redeemed as needed at the fund's current NAV, which—unlike a stock price—doesn't fluctuate during market hours, but it is settled at the end of each trading day. Ergo, the price of a mutual fund is also updated when the NAVPS is settled.
The average mutual fund holds hundreds of different securities, which means mutual fund shareholders gain important diversification at a low price. Consider an investor who buys only Google stock before the company has a bad quarter. He stands to lose a great deal of value because all of his dollars are tied to one company. On the other hand, a different investor may buy shares of a mutual fund that happens to own some Google stock. When Google has a bad quarter, she loses significantly less because Google is just a small part of the fund's portfolio.
출처 : Investopedia