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Standard 10 paper style according to the new model considering the situation of Corona Social Science 2020-2021

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Standard 10 paper style according to the new model considering the situation of Corona Social Science 2020-2021

Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)
A twist on the mutual fund is the exchange traded fund (ETF). These ever more popular investment vehicles pool investments and employ strategies consistent with mutual funds, but they are structured as investment trusts that are traded on stock exchanges and have the added benefits of the features of stocks. For example, ETFs can be bought and sold at any point throughout the trading day. ETFs can also be sold short or purchased on margin. ETFs also typically carry lower fees than the equivalent mutual fund. Many ETFs also benefit from active options markets, where investors can hedge or leverage their positions. ETFs also enjoy tax advantages from mutual funds. Compared to mutual funds, ETFs tend to be more cost effective and more liquid. The popularity of ETFs speaks to their versatility and convenience.


Mutual Fund Fees
A mutual fund will classify expenses into either annual operating fees or shareholder fees. Annual fund operating fees are an annual percentage of the funds under management, usually ranging from 1–3%. Annual operating fees are collectively known as the expense ratio. A fund's expense ratio is the summation of the advisory or management fee and its administrative costs.

Shareholder fees, which come in the form of sales charges, commissions, and redemption fees, are paid directly by investors when purchasing or selling the funds. Sales charges or commissions are known as "the load" of a mutual fund. When a mutual fund has a front-end load, fees are assessed when shares are purchased. For a back-end load, mutual fund fees are assessed when an investor sells his shares.

Diversification
Diversification, or the mixing of investments and assets within a portfolio to reduce risk, is one of the advantages of investing in mutual funds. Experts advocate diversification as a way of enhancing a portfolio's returns, while reducing its risk. Buying individual company stocks and offsetting them with industrial sector stocks, for example, offers some diversification. However, a truly diversified portfolio has securities with different capitalizations and industries and bonds with varying maturities and issuers. Buying a mutual fund can achieve diversification cheaper and faster than by buying individual securities. Large mutual funds typically own hundreds of different stocks in many different industries. It wouldn't be practical for an investor to build this kind of a portfolio with a small amount of money.

Easy Access
Trading on the major stock exchanges, mutual funds can be bought and sold with relative ease, making them highly liquid investments. Also, when it comes to certain types of assets, like foreign equities or exotic commodities, mutual funds are often the most feasible way—in fact, sometimes the only way—for individual investors to participate.

Economies of Scale
Mutual funds also provide economies of scale. Buying one spares the investor of the numerous commission charges needed to create a diversified portfolio. Buying only one security at a time leads to large transaction fees, which will eat up a good chunk of the investment. Also, the $100 to $200 an individual investor might be able to afford is usually not enough to buy a round lot of the stock, but it will purchase many mutual fund shares. The smaller denominations of mutual funds allow investors to take advantage of dollar cost averaging.

Because a mutual fund buys and sells large amounts of securities at a time, its transaction costs are lower than what an individual would pay for securities transactions. Moreover, a mutual fund, since it pools money from many smaller investors, can invest in certain assets or take larger positions than a smaller investor could. For example, the fund may have access to IPO placements or certain structured products only available to institutional investors.

Professional Management
A primary advantage of mutual funds is not having to pick stocks and manage investments. Instead, a professional investment manager takes care of all of this using careful research and skillful trading. Investors purchase funds because they often do not have the time or the expertise to manage their own portfolios, or they don't have access to the same kind of information that a professional fund has. A mutual fund is a relatively inexpensive way for a small investor to get a full-time manager to make and monitor investments. Most private, non-institutional money managers deal only with high-net-worth individuals—people with at least six figures to invest. However, mutual funds, as noted above, require much lower investment minimums. So, these funds provide a low-cost way for individual investors to experience and hopefully benefit from professional money management.

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Variety and Freedom of Choice
Investors have the freedom to research and select from managers with a variety of styles and management goals. For instance, a fund manager may focus on value investing, growth investing, developed markets, emerging markets, income, or macroeconomic investing, among many other styles. One manager may also oversee funds that employ several different styles. This variety allows investors to gain exposure to not only stocks and bonds but also commodities, foreign assets, and real estate through specialized mutual funds. Some mutual funds are even structured to profit from a falling market (known as bear funds). Mutual funds provide opportunities for foreign and domestic investment that may not otherwise be directly accessible to ordinary investors.