One course open to the defensive investor is to put his money into investment-company shares. Those that are redeemable on demand by the holder, at net asset value, are commonly known as “mutual funds” (or “open-end funds”). Most of these are actively selling additional shares through a corps of salesmen. Those with nonredeemable shares are called “closed-end” companies or funds; the number of their shares remains relatively constant. All of the funds of any importance are registered with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), and are subject to its regulations and controls.*
The industry is a very large one. At the end of 1970 there were 383 funds registered with the SEC, having assets totaling ...
Get The Intelligent Investor, Rev. Ed now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.