A Brief History Of The Mutual Fund
Mutual funds really captured the public's attention in the 1980s and '90s when mutual fund investment hit record highs and investors saw incredible returns. However, the idea of pooling assets for investment purposes has been around for a long time. Here we look at the evolution of this investment vehicle, from its beginnings in the Netherlands in the 18th century to its present status as a growing, international industry with fund holdings accounting for trillions of dollars in the United States alone.
In the Beginning
Historians are uncertain of the origins of investment funds; some cite the closed-end investment companies launched in the Netherlands in 1822 by King William I as the first mutual funds, while others point to a Dutch merchant named Adriaan van Ketwich whose investment trust created in 1774 may have given the king the idea. Ketwich probably theorized that diversification would increase the appeal of investments to smaller investors with minimal capital. The name of Ketwich's fund, Eendragt Maakt Magt, translates to "unity creates strength". The next wave of near-mutual funds included an investment trust launched in
The idea of pooling resources and spreading risk using closed-end investments soon took root in
The Arrival of the Modern Fund
The creation of the Massachusetts Investors' Trust in
Regulation and Expansion
By 1929, there were 19 open-ended mutual funds competing with nearly 700 closed-end funds. With the stock market crash of 1929, the dynamic began to change as highly-leveraged closed-end funds were wiped out and small open-end funds managed to survive.
The mutual fund industry continued to expand. At the beginning of the 1950s, the number of open-end funds topped 100. In 1954, the financial markets overcame their 1929 peak, and the mutual fund industry began to grow in earnest, adding some 50 new funds over the course of the decade. The 1960s saw the rise of aggressive growth funds, with more than 100 new funds established and billions of dollars in new asset inflows.
Hundreds of new funds were launched throughout the 1960s until the bear market of 1969 cooled the public appetite for mutual funds. Money flowed out of mutual funds as quickly as investors could redeem their shares, but the industry's growth later resumed.
Recent Developments
In 1971, William Fouse and John McQuown of Wells Fargo Bank established the first index fund, a concept that John Bogle would use as a foundation on which to build The Vanguard Group, a mutual fund powerhouse renowned for low-cost index funds. The 1970s also saw the rise of the no-load fund. This new way of doing business had an enormous impact on the way mutual funds were sold and would make a major contribution to the industry's success.
With the 1980s and '90s came bull market mania and previously obscure fund managers became superstars; Max Heine, Michael Price and Peter Lynch, the mutual fund industry's top gunslingers, became household names and money poured into the retail investment industry at a stunning pace. More recently, the burst of the tech bubble and a spate of scandals involving big names in the industry took much of the shine off of the industry's reputation. Shady dealings at major fund companies demonstrated that mutual funds aren't always benign investments managed by folks who have their shareholders' best interests in mind.
Conclusion
Despite the 2003 mutual fund scandals and the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, the story of the mutual fund is far from over. In fact, the industry is still growing. In the U.S. alone there are more than 10,000 mutual funds, and if one accounts for all share classes of similar funds, fund holdings are measured in the trillions of dollars. Despite the launch of separate accounts, exchange-traded funds and other competing products, the mutual fund industry remains healthy and fund ownership continues to grow.
For further reading, see Advantages Of Mutual Funds, Disadvantages Of Mutual Funds and The ABCs Of Mutual Fund Classes.
by
James E. McWhinney
James McWhinney has been a professional writer for nearly two decades. He has worked for many of the nation's top mutual fund providers and banks in addition to numerous magazines, websites and other publications. He specializes in financial services and travel.
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