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A mutual fund is a professionally managed investment fund that pools money from many investors to purchase securities.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title= U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Information on Mutual Funds )〕 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". Hedge funds are not mutual funds, primarily because they cannot be sold to the general public. In the United States, mutual funds must be registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, overseen by a board of directors or board of trustees, and managed by a Registered Investment Advisor. Mutual funds are subject to an extensive and detailed regulatory regime set forth in the Investment Company Act of 1940. 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. Today they play an important role in household finances, most notably in retirement planning. There are three types of U.S. mutual funds—open-end funds, unit investment trusts, and closed-end funds. The most common type, open-end funds, must be willing to buy back shares from investors every business day. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are open-end funds or unit investment trusts that trade on an exchange. Non-exchange-traded open-end funds are most common, but ETFs 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 passively managed) or actively managed. Investors in a mutual fund pay the fund’s expenses, which reduce the fund's returns and performance. There is controversy about the level of these expenses. == Structure == In the United States, a mutual fund is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Open-end and closed-end funds are 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 sponsor or fund management company, often referred to as the fund manager, trades (buys and sells) the fund's investments in accordance with the fund's investment objective. A fund manager must be a registered investment adviser. Funds that are managed by the same company under the same brand 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 most of their income (dividends, interest, and capital gains net of losses) to their investors annually, and earn most of the income by investing in securities and currencies. 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. The characterization of a fund's income is unchanged when it is paid to shareholders. For example, when a mutual fund distributes dividend income to its shareholders, fund investors will report the distribution as dividend income on their tax return. As a result, mutual funds are often called "pass-through" vehicles, because they simply pass on income and related tax liabilities to their investors. 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, a legal document 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. A mutual fund's investment portfolio is continually monitored by the fund's portfolio manager or managers. Hedge funds are not considered a type of (unregistered) mutual fund. While hedge funds are another type of collective investment vehicle, they are not governed by the Investment Company Act of 1940 and are not required to register with the SEC (though hedge fund managers must register as investment advisers). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「mutual fund」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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