Money market funds refer to funds that invest in short-term securities in the money market. The assets of the Fund are mainly invested in short-term monetary instruments, such as treasury bills, commercial paper, bank time deposit certificates, government short-term bonds, corporate bonds and other short-term securities.

The first money fund appeared in 2003. At present, the scale of domestic money funds has reached 4957.1300 million yuan, many of which have excellent performance and the yield exceeds the one-year benchmark, such as Haifutong Money Fund. At the same time, the proportion of individual investors in the investment structure of such funds is gradually increasing.

Money market funds can be divided into three categories according to risks:

Treasury money market funds mainly invest in treasury bonds and government-guaranteed securities. The maturity of these securities is generally less than 1 year, and the average maturity is 120 days.

(2) Diversified money market funds are all kinds of securities, and the maturity time is similar to the above funds.

③ Tax-free monetary fund, mainly used for short-term financing of high-quality municipal securities.

Compared with traditional funds, money market funds have the following characteristics:

① The main difference between money market funds and other funds that invest in stocks is that the net asset value of each fund unit is fixed, usually 65,438+0 yuan per fund unit.

② The standard to measure the performance of money market funds is the rate of return, which is different from other funds that make profits by increasing their net assets.

③ Good liquidity and high capital security. These characteristics are mainly due to the fact that the money market is a low-risk and high-liquidity market. At the same time, investors can transfer the fund shares at any time as needed, regardless of the maturity date.

④ Low risk. The term of money market instruments is usually very short, and the average term of money market fund portfolio is usually 4 ~ 6 months, so the risk is low, and its price is usually only affected by market interest rate.

⑤ Low investment cost. Money market funds usually do not charge redemption fees and have low management fees. The annual management fee of money market funds is about 0.25% ~ 1% of the fund's net asset value, which is lower than the traditional annual management fee 1% ~ 2.5%.

⑥ Money market funds are all open-end funds. Money market funds are usually regarded as risk-free or low-risk investment tools, which are suitable for short-term capital investment and emergency interest bearing.