Every term is defined twice: once the way a filing would put it, and once the way somebody would explain it to you across a table. The second one is usually the one that sticks.
Showing 20 terms
A pooled vehicle that collects money from many investors and buys a portfolio of securities on their behalf, priced daily at NAV.
Its expense ratio is charged annually on your whole balance whether the fund wins or loses — the one completely certain variable in investing.
The trust, and its trustees, that legally hold a scheme’s assets on behalf of the unitholders.
The assets belong to the trust for you, not to the AMC. A prescribed majority of trustees must be independent of the sponsor, which is the whole point of having them.
Asset Management Company — the entity that runs a mutual fund’s schemes.
The fund house. It earns the expense ratio whether the fund beats anything or not.
Association of Mutual Funds in India — the industry body publishing official NAV and scheme data.
The primary source for fund data, free of whatever a platform wants to sell you.
The registration number identifying a mutual fund distributor, recorded against the folio it sold.
Striking it off stops that distributor being credited and redirects fresh money, but it does not move units you already hold out of the regular plan.
A single statement covering mutual fund and demat holdings across providers.
The most useful document most Indian investors have never opened. It finds the folios you forgot.
A separately registered entity that holds a mutual fund scheme’s securities, required to be independent of the sponsor in the manner the regulations prescribe.
This is where the money literally is. It is why an AMC in financial difficulty is a management problem rather than a custody problem.
The daily deadline determining which day’s NAV a mutual fund transaction receives.
What binds is when the money reaches the fund house, not when you tapped invest.
A mutual fund investing in bonds and other fixed-income instruments.
Not an FD with better returns. It carries credit risk and duration risk, which behave completely differently.
Domestic Institutional Investor — Indian mutual funds, insurers, pension funds and banks.
Funded by monthly SIP flows, which has made them the shock absorber against FII selling.
A mutual fund version with no distributor commission built into the expense ratio.
Same fund, same manager, same portfolio — typically 0.5–1% cheaper every single year.
An Indian mutual fund scheme that invests into an overseas fund rather than buying foreign securities directly.
No remittance and no forex paperwork, which is the appeal. Expenses are higher, and the industry-wide overseas investment limit has been hit before — schemes then stop accepting fresh money.
An account number identifying your holding with a particular mutual fund house.
One person can accumulate a dozen folios across fund houses and distributors. Consolidating them is how forgotten investments get found.
The defined features of a mutual fund scheme — its type, its investment objective and pattern, and its terms of issue — which cannot be changed without written notice to unitholders and a no-load exit option of at least thirty days.
The list is narrower than people assume. A merger or a rewritten objective is on it; the manager leaving is not, however much of your reason for buying they were.
Net Asset Value — a mutual fund’s holdings minus liabilities, divided by units outstanding.
A low NAV is not cheap. It reflects how long the fund has existed, not what it is worth.
The version of a mutual fund scheme whose expense ratio includes a commission paid to the distributor who sold it.
Same scheme, same manager, same portfolio as the direct plan, typically 0.5–1% dearer every year. The extra is charged whether or not any advice is ever given.
The combining of one mutual fund scheme into another, after which unitholders hold units of the surviving scheme.
A change in fundamental attributes, so it arrives as a written notice with a no-load exit window. The waiver covers the load, not the capital gains tax, which is usually the larger number.
Moving money between mutual fund schemes or plans, executed as a redemption from one and a fresh purchase into the other.
Not an administrative relabelling. It carries any exit load, realises the gain for tax, and starts the holding period again from that day.
Closing a mutual fund scheme: redemptions stop and the portfolio is sold down, with cash returned in instalments as it is realised.
Not the same as the money being lost. In a liquidity failure the bonds are sound and cannot be sold this week; in a credit failure the borrower cannot pay at all. On the day, both look like a blocked redemption.
Unit Linked Insurance Plan — a product bundling market-linked investment with a small amount of life cover.
A costly mutual fund with a little insurance attached. Both parts are worse than buying them separately.