tailieunhanh - The Mutual Fund Industry 60 Years Later: For Better or Worse?

The term „structured product‟ is the name given to an investment product that provides a return that is pre- determined with reference to the performance of one or more underlying markets. The performance of a structured product is therefore based only on the performance of this underlying product and not on the discretion of the product provider. Most often the product relies on the use of derivatives to generate the return, and contains downside protection or guarantees of some form via options. Structured products are therefore passive in nature, with the cost depending on option and other derivative premia | Financial Analysts Journal The Mutual Fund Industry 60 Years Later For Better or Worse John C. Bogle In the aggregate the fundamental changes in the mutual fund industry during the past 60 years have benefited mutual fund managers not mutual fund investors. Over the course of the past 60 years the mutual fund industry has undergone tremendous change. In 1945 it was a tiny industry offering a relative handful of funds largely diversified equity and balanced funds. As 2005 begins it is a multi-trillion-dollar titan offering thousands of funds with a dizzying array of investment policies and strategies. I have been actively engaged in this field since 1949 fully 55 years of the Financial Analyst Journal s 60-year existence when I researched and wrote my Princeton University senior thesis about mutual funds. I have spent my entire career in the mutual fund industry. The staggering increase in the size of the industry and the huge expansion in the number and types of funds are but the obvious manifestations of the radical changes in the mutual fund industry. It has also undergone a multifaceted change in character. In 1945 it was an industry engaged primarily in the profession of serving investors and striving to meet the standards of the recently enacted Investment Company Act of 1940 which established the policy that funds must be organized operated and managed in the interests of their shareholders rather than in the interests of their managers and distributors. It was an industry that focused primarily on stewardship. Today in contrast the industry is a vast and highly successful marketing business an industry focused primarily on salesmanship. As countless independent commentators have observed asset gathering has become the fund industry s driving force. Beneath the surface of this broad change lie numerous specific developments. This essay reviews 10 of the major changes that have taken place in the mutual fund industry during the past 60 years and then evaluates