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Know the Advantages and Disadvantages of Mutual Funds Before Investing

Mutual funds are investment instruments that are easy to understand, making them suitable for attracting novice investors who want to know more about mutual funds. If you have limited time to oversee investments, mutual funds are the right choice because they are also managed by experienced professionals and are known as investment managers (MI).

Mutual Funds are investment instruments that collect funds from the public to be placed in the Securities Portfolio by the Investment Manager. Furthermore, this fund will be managed by the Investment Manager to be invested in stocks, bonds, and the money market.

Before deciding to invest in mutual funds, let's look at the advantages and risks of mutual funds. So that in practice later, you can be wiser in making decisions related to financial planning in the future.

Mutual Fund Benefits

There are four types of mutual funds, namely money market mutual funds, fixed income mutual funds (the majority are in bonds), equity mutual funds, and mixed mutual funds. In general, the advantages of mutual funds are as follows.

1. Affordable Capital

One of the advantages of investing in mutual funds is that the capital is affordable. You don't need to collect money up to a fantastic nominal to start investing in mutual funds. Even with affordable capital, the benefits of investing in mutual funds are also fairly competitive with other investment instruments.

2. Managed by Professionals

As previously explained, mutual fund investments are managed by investment managers who are professional and experienced in their fields. This makes the investment safe and has the opportunity to get good profits. The investment manager will only manage funds in the best place so that the results are maximized. If you are a novice investor, another advantage is having the opportunity to learn and dig up information from Investment Managers as a provision of knowledge in reading the market.

3. High Liquidity

Another advantage of mutual funds is their high liquidity, meaning that investments can be liquidated/sold at any time using the Net Asset Value (NAV) price that was in effect at the time of sale. With its easy-to-disburse nature, when you have an urgent need, you can immediately withdraw mutual funds and their benefits.

4. Can Diversify Easily

Mutual funds are referred to as safe and profitable investment instruments because the funds can be placed in various financial sectors. Several sectors to choose from, such as deposits, bonds, and stocks. If the worst condition is that one sector goes bankrupt or loses, you are still safe because there are other profitable sectors, losses can be prevented.

5. Easy Process

In addition to affordable investment capital, mutual funds can also be processed easily. Currently, there are many online platforms to help access mutual fund investments. Mutual fund buying and selling transactions can be done anytime and anywhere online.

Disadvantages of Mutual Funds

In making an investment, using any instrument there are definitely risks that must be faced. It is important for potential investors, especially for beginners, not only to focus on the advantages or convenience of an investment instrument, but also to pay attention to the disadvantages or risks involved in investing. By understanding both of them, you will get additional information that is wise in making decisions in your financial planning. Here are some of the disadvantages of mutual funds that you need to know about.

1. Default

The first risk that might occur is the risk of default from the Investment Manager. This condition makes investment managers unable to fulfill their obligations to investors, namely returning funds and profits or also known as default. This was due to the inappropriate selection and management of securities. Investment Manager business partners such as custodian banks, brokers, or mutual fund securities agents.

2. Economic and Political Problems

The existence of economic and political problems in a country can also cause unstable investment in mutual funds. An example is a new policy regarding investment rules in a country.

3. Value Dropped

Another risk that may occur is a decrease in the value of net assets per investment unit. Usually, this risk is quite high for stock mutual funds. For money market mutual funds, the risk of decline in value is quite small because the instruments are usually deposits and bonds. Therefore, the profits from mutual funds are also uncertain, there can be a lot of them, they can also suddenly decrease and even make you lose.

4. Mutual Fund Ownership Fee

There is a cost in the ownership of mutual funds or called the expense ratio. Expense ratio is an indicator of the cost of managing mutual funds by investment managers. This fee is charged to mutual fund investors.

5. Liquidity Risk

Even though mutual funds are easy to liquidate, under some conditions the investment manager is late in preparing funds for investors. This can happen if there are many investors who withdraw large amounts of funds simultaneously.

However, this risk may be small because mutual funds are now regulated in law and the maximum disbursement is 7 working days. So, investment managers can prepare funds first before starting to give them to investors.

6. Losses are borne by investors

If the place where you invest in mutual funds goes bankrupt, the losses will be borne by yourself. The government does not guarantee mutual fund losses. In contrast to deposit products that have been guaranteed by LPS. It is also possible for mutual fund dissolution to occur as a result of violations based on OJK observations that eventually failed to pay investors.

Above is some information relating to the advantages and disadvantages of mutual funds as a form of existing investment instruments. The more information you know, the more comfortable you will be in investing.

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