In exchange for the latitude to invest in more asset classes and provide less transparency to investors, the SEC limits them to only accredited investors with high incomes or net worths. Hedge funds are perhaps the least accessible type investment.
The portfolio manager has discretion over which funds to include, when to make changes to the investment strategy and how to manage the portfolio over time-so long as the allocation of stocks to bonds stays within the fund’s goals. “A portfolio manager then selects the underlying mutual funds that comprise the stock or bond allocation.”
“In this strategy, there is a specific stock to bond weighting, like 60/40 or 80/20,” says Weiss of Facet Wealth. Instead of targeting a date, some funds of funds home in on a particular asset allocation strategy. Practically speaking, this means target date funds start more heavily invested in stock-based funds and gradually shift to a higher percentage of bond- and fixed-income-based funds as you approach retirement age. When investors choose a target date fund, their asset allocation and diversification automatically adjusts as they near their target retirement date. These days, you can find target date funds just about anywhere, from workplace retirement plans to taxable investment accounts at major brokerages. “These are designed primarily for retirement plans like 401(k) plans and created for the plan participant who does not want to implement, monitor and adjust their mix of investments,” says Athanassie. Target date funds are the most popular type of fund of funds, says Steve Athanassie, CFP. In each separate type of fund of funds, you may find fettered funds-meaning they only invest in funds held by the same management company, like Fidelity or Vanguard-or unfettered funds, meaning they invest in funds held by any management company. Types of Funds of Fundsįunds of funds are available to meet a range of investment styles and goals. In a sense, when you invest in a fund of funds, you’re “hiring a ‘general contractor’ to complete research on other managers, balance overall risk and make sure the entire ‘project’ runs smoothly,” says Brent Weiss, CFP, co-founder of Facet Wealth. “A fund of funds is just an iteration of this, but rather than investing in a particular mutual fund, you are investing in a group of funds chosen, filtered and selected by the fund of funds company,” says John Matina, co-founder and director of finance at PARCO, a startup aimed at helping Americans prepare for retirement and manage their pensions.
This gives participants the benefit of having a professional manager select investments for them while spreading out the risk across many individual securities. With mutual funds, ETFs and hedge funds, investors buy shares and fund managers put the capital to work in assets like bonds and stocks, depending on the fund’s investment strategy.Ī short-term municipal bond fund, for example, would use its investors’ money to build a portfolio of short-term municipal bonds. When you invest in a fund of funds, you get an entire diversified investment portfolio at once, featuring broad exposure to many different asset classes with less risk involved. A fund of funds is an investment vehicle that invests in mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or even hedge funds.