# 🥗 Mutual Fund By [Let Them Eat Cake](https://paragraph.com/@ltecake) · 2022-06-21 --- **TL,DR: Efficient way to consume a variety of products around a central theme and eat the rainbow** Mutual Fund | Salad * Made from veggies (bonds) or stocks (fruits) * Easy way to diversify across product types * Can be customized to your liking More refined than a smoothie Eatamology Mutual Funds involve mutual or shared buy in from many consumers, into a fund or pool of money that is used to purchase individual products. Financials Unlike ETF’s, which trade throughout the day on the markets and experience price fluctuations like individual stocks, mutual funds are priced nightly at the net asset value (NAV), which is the sum of all the products times the price of each product, within the fund. Imagine one of those pre-made salads from the grocery store, which is composed and stamped with a price each morning based on it’s way and contents. It doesn’t matter how many are sold throughout the day, because the price on each salad has been fixed for that day. Consumers pay a premium to have professionals assemble these funds, and those premiums come in the form of 3 fees (Front End Fee, Back End Fee, and 12b-1 Fee). Some funds charge all 3 and some don’t charge any. Front End Fee | Paying upfront, takeout Like paying for the salad upfront, front end fees are charged at the time a fund is purchased. Back End Fee | Paying after your meal, dine-in Like paying for the salad after your meal, back end fees are charged at the time a fund is consumed or sold 12b-1 Fee | Yearly membership Like paying yearly dues for access to a salad bar, the 12b-1 fee is charged annually. The “12” very simply reflects the payment every 12 months. The “1” very redundantly reflects the payment every 1 year. Nutrition Facts Price: Expensive Management: Active Diversity: High Example Ingredients ESG Fund, Cyclical Fund, Big Tech, Money Market Fund --- *Originally published on [Let Them Eat Cake](https://paragraph.com/@ltecake/mutual-fund)*