Is there a minimum time you must hold a mutual fund after you buy into it?

Minimum time in terms of extra charges or tieing up money for trading. I know that if I buy a common stock and sell it immediatly, I must wait three working days for the funds to become available for trading again (unsettled cash).

I want to jump into a fund for a very short period of time...about a week and I'm wondering if there are hidden costs or if I will tie up my active trading money.

even with funds, you will still be subject to the settling time. The other bit of bad news is that you will also be hit pretty hard with fees and/or penalties.

What it seems like you are trying to do is get a distribution from the fund like a dividend or special payment. Trust me, you wont come out on top with this strategy. What you have to remember is the purchase & sell fees involved. Assuming you are buying B shares, you could pay upwards of 5-8% on the sale amount, it costs nothing to buy in. In addition, many funds have an early withdrawal fee of about 2-4% if you sell before 90 days. If you are doing A shares, you have the same problem but you are paying the fee up front, so you actually are working with less than what you put in. No load funds also have the early cash out fee. Then lets talk taxes on the short term gains. Then talk brokerage fees.

You would not only have to make a monster sized gain on your principal, but that must also be a sizable distribution that you need to get in order for it to make sense. Does not sound like a good idea for such a short term play.

Your breath...funds are not an in and out thing, it takes time...just like other important things in life!!!

Some funds will slap a 1% or 2% charge on you if you try to trade in and out of them. They try to discourage this. Why don't you consider trading an exchange-traded fund (ETF) instead, that's more or less why they exist.

If you open a margin trading account then you can day trade ETFs which are pretty much like mutual funds.

Every fund is different and some actually do have what is called an early redemption penalty (fee). Some funds require you hold your shares for a certain period of time or else you will be assessed this penalty which is typically a few percentage points.

As far as frequent trading, if you are selling a fund and subsequently purchasing another fund within the same fund family this is generally allowed in the same day since that would be an exchange. But when selling a fund to purchase another fund with a different fund family you will see the T+3 settlement.

This is more of a function of trading in a cash versus margin account, not so much the investment vehicle being used.

mutualfunds.about.com hope this helps

for short term purchases you are better off with ETF's. While they are more voliatle they have a higher chance of making more money than with a mutual fund. Again this is all depending on you selecting the right one but be wary of capital gains taxes.