It is a fund with variable issuance, and the total number of fund shares (units) can be increased or decreased at any time. Investors can purchase or redeem it at the business place designated by the fund manager according to the quotation of the fund. Compared with closed-end funds, open-end funds have the characteristics of unlimited issuance, transaction price based on net asset value, over-the-counter transaction and relatively low risk, which is especially suitable for small and medium-sized investors to invest.
The development history of world funds is the history from closed-end funds to open-end funds. Take the United States, the most mature fund market, as an example. 1 in September 1990, there were 3,000 open-end funds in the United States, with total assets of1trillion dollars; There are only 250 closed-end funds with total assets of $60 billion. By 1996, the assets of American open-end funds were $3,539.2 billion, while the assets of closed-end funds were only128.5 billion, accounting for 27.54 ∶ 1. In 1940, the ratio of the two is only 0.73: 1. In Japan, before 1990, closed-end funds accounted for the vast majority, and open-end funds were in a subordinate position; However, after the 1990s, the situation has changed fundamentally, and the asset size of open-end funds has reached about twice that of closed-end funds.
In Hongkong, Thailand, Taiwan Province, Singapore, the Philippines and other countries and regions where Asian investment funds were developed earlier, closed-end funds were mainly developed at the initial stage, and gradually the two types of funds coexisted. From a global perspective, the net assets balance of open-end investment funds in the world in 1990 was US$ 2,355.4 billion, and by 1995 it had jumped to US$ 5,340.7 billion.
Open-end funds have gradually become the mainstream of investment funds in the world.
Most investment funds in the world are closed at the beginning. This is because in the early stage of the development of investment funds, the handling fee for buying and selling closed-end funds is far lower than that for redeeming open-end fund shares. From the perspective of fund management, because there is no pressure to redeem beneficiary certificates, investors' funds can be fully utilized to implement their investment strategies, so as to maximize returns.
Closed-end fund:
Belonging to the trust fund, it refers to the investment fund whose scale has been determined before issuance, fixed within a specified period after issuance and traded in the securities market. Because closed-end funds are traded by bidding in securities trading, the transaction price is affected by the relationship between market supply and demand, which does not necessarily reflect the fund's net asset value, that is, the transaction price of closed-end funds has a premium and discount phenomenon relative to its net asset value. The practice of foreign closed-end funds shows that the transaction price often has the price fluctuation law of first premium and then discount. Judging from the operation of closed-end funds in China, no matter how the fundamental situation changes, the transaction price trend of closed-end funds in China has never deviated from the price fluctuation law of first premium and then discount.
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. At present, China's securities investment funds are all contractual funds.