Fund, in English, refers to a certain amount of funds set up for a certain purpose. It mainly includes trust and investment funds, provident funds, insurance funds, retirement funds and funds of various foundations.
From the accounting point of view, capital is a narrow concept, which refers to funds with specific purposes and uses. The fund we are talking about mainly refers to the securities investment fund.
Refers to the special fund set up to compensate the economic losses caused by accidents, or the economic needs caused by personal injury or loss of work ability. In modern society, insurance funds generally have four forms:
Central national fiscal reserve fund. Fund is a kind of monetary fund set up in the national budget, which is specially used to meet unexpected expenses and special needs in the national economic plan, such as the relief of catastrophic natural disasters, foreign invasion, mistakes in the national economic plan, etc.
Insurance funds of professional insurance organizations, that is, insurance companies and other insurance organizations raise insurance funds by collecting insurance premiums to compensate insurance units and individuals for losses caused by disasters or pay insurance benefits due.
Social security fund. As a national social policy, social security aims to provide a series of basic living guarantees for citizens. Citizens have the right to get material help from the state and society in case of old age, illness, unemployment, disaster and loss of working ability. Social security generally includes social insurance, social welfare and social relief.
Self-insurance fund, that is, economic units raise insurance funds by themselves to compensate for the losses caused by disasters and accidents. There are professional self-insurance companies abroad to raise funds to compensate the losses of parent companies and subsidiaries; China has a "safety production guarantee fund" through which industries can protect themselves, such as the "safety production guarantee fund" set up in sinopec group.
According to different standards, securities investment funds can be divided into different types:
According to whether fund units can be increased or redeemed, they can be divided into open-end funds and closed-end funds. Open-end funds are not traded on the market (as the case may be), but are purchased and redeemed by banks, brokers and fund companies, and the fund scale is not fixed; Closed-end funds have a fixed duration and are generally listed and traded on the stock exchange. Investors buy and sell fund shares through the secondary market.
According to different organizational forms, it can be divided into corporate funds and contractual funds. A fund is established by issuing fund shares to establish an investment fund company, which is usually called a corporate fund; The establishment of fund managers, fund custodians and investors through fund contracts is usually called contractual funds. China's securities investment funds are all contractual funds.
According to the difference of investment risk and income, it can be divided into growth fund, income fund and balanced fund.
According to the different investment objects, it can be divided into four categories: bond funds, stock funds, money funds and hybrid funds.