Mutual Funds Glossary

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General Bond Funds

A fund that invests in bonds without any quality or maturity restrictions.

General Municipal Bond Funds

A fund that invests primarily in bonds issued by municipalities throughout the country, and which generate federally tax-exempt income.

Global Mutual Fund

A mutual fund that invests anywhere in the world, including within the United States. These can be either stock or bond funds.

GNMA (Government National Mortgage Association)

Nicknamed Ginnie Mae, the Government National Mortgage Association is a government owned corporation with the authority to fully guarantee the full and timely payment of all monthly principal and interest payments on the mortgage backed securities collateralized by registered holders.

Gold Fund

A fund that invests primarily in securities associated with gold, including gold mining, refining and production concerns. Gold funds are also sometimes referred to as precious metals funds.

Government Income Fund

A fund that invests primarily in securities associated with gold, including gold mining, refining and production concerns. Gold funds are also sometimes referred to as precious metals funds.

Growth

An investment objective of many stock funds. Current income, if considered at all, is a secondary concern for these funds. Capital growth is achieved when the market value of a fund's holdings increases, causing the fund's net asset value per share to increase.

Growth and Income Fund

A fund that seeks to provide both growth of capital and a stream of income. This is done by investing primarily in the common stock of companies that have had not only increasing share value, but also a solid record of paying dividends.

Growth Fund

A fund that invests primarily in the stocks of companies whose long-term earnings are expected to grow significantly faster than the earnings of the market in general (as represented by the S&P 500 Index). In general, growth funds seek to provide capital gains, rather than dividend income.

Growth Index Fund

A fund that invests primarily in growth stocks included in one of the major unmanaged stock indices. Growth index funds generally seek to match or exceed the investment performance of the targeted index.

Growth Investing

An investment strategy to increase capital by buying stocks the manager believes will go up in price, regardless of the stock's current price relative to its underlying value. Growth investing is often discussed in contrast to value investing.