How can you describe the mutual fund?

i am looking for the simplest way and please would you please provide examples of mutual funds? ( like bonds)

A mutual fund is a professionally-managed form of collective investments that pools money from many investors and invests it in stocks, bonds, short-term money market instruments, and/or other securities.

Go to Vanguard.com and click on mutual funds. There you will see hundreds of stock, bond and mix of mutual funds.

A mutual fund is an investment vehicle where investors buy shares of a "basket" of other investments. A fund manager buys various investments and the puts all of them in one "basket" known as a mutual fund.

So, a mutual fund might own 1,000 shars of Coka Cola, and 5,000 shares of IBM, etc. When you buy one share of that mutual fund, you are getting i tiny bit of Coke, and a tiny bit of IBM, etc.

simply its like a box contain different things , those things could be all stocks or bonds or metals or forex , or a mix of all those . this box has a manger who chose its components and he decide when to buy or sell. there r countless number of mutual funds

Mutual Funds
A mutual fund is simply a financial intermediary that allows a group of investors to pool their money together with a predetermined investment objective. The mutual fund will have a fund manager who is responsible for investing the pooled money into specific securities (usually stocks or bonds). When you invest in a mutual fund, you are buying shares (or portions) of the mutual fund and become a shareholder of the fund.

Mutual funds are one of the best investments ever created because they are very cost efficient and very easy to invest in (you don't have to figure out which stocks or bonds to buy). If you would like to know the history of mutual funds, click here.
By pooling money together in a mutual fund, investors can purchase stocks or bonds with much lower trading costs than if they tried to do it on their own. But the biggest advantage to mutual funds is diversification.

http://mutualfunds.about.com/cs/building...

Examples:
http://www.tdassetmanagement.com/Content...

A mutual fund company, like T Rowe Price, sets up a program. They buy stocks or bonds to start the fund. They sell shares of the fund, to get their money back and earn money on fees.

If Price starts a utility fund, they buy stocks in utility companies where they see opportunities to make money. You then buy shares, or parts of the fund. You do not own any individual stocks, but you make money when the stock companies do. You can buy or sell shares of your fund, without anyone buying and selling the stocks that make up the fund. You might have an interest in parts of the stock of 200 companies.

pool of investment instuments