Mutual funds are investment companies that pool money from many investors to buy securities, such as stocks and bonds. Mutual funds are usually run by professional managers who buy and sell securities for the fund.

Mutual funds can be either open-end or closed-end funds. Open-end funds allow new investors to join the fund company at any time, while closed-end funds generally are closed to new investors and can only be sold to existing shareholders when a shareholder wants to cash out of his or her shares.

Open-end mutual funds may have a minimum investment amount required to purchase shares in the fund; this is called the initial purchase requirement (IPR). If you don’t have enough money saved up at the time of your initial purchase, you may be unable to make an initial purchase of mutual fund shares. You can always make additional investments later on if you have more money saved up.

A mutual fund is a pool of funds with each share representing a piece of the pie. The shares are often redeemed by buying more shares and in this way, the investor makes money when the general stock market rises.