Funds: ETFs and Russian BPIFs
How an exchange-traded fund differs from a mutual fund, where the fee comes from, and what tracking error means in practice.
8 articles
Crypto ETFs: what the fund actually holds and what you pay to the coin holderA crypto ETF is an exchange-traded fund whose units trade like an ordinary share, backed either by the coin itself held in a custodian's accounts or by derivatives on it.6 min
How to choose a fund: five checks in orderA fund is chosen not by its name or by a chart of a past period but by a sequence of checks: what is inside, how much the management company charges for its work, how closely the fund tracks its benchmark, how it trades on the exchange and what legal wrapper all of this comes in.6 min
Gold funds: how they differ from the metalWhen you buy a gold fund, you are buying not the metal but a unit — a book entry recording your share in the fund's assets, which are controlled by the management company.6 min
Active and Passive Management: What the Fee Pays ForThe fee in active management is a payment for the attempt to beat a benchmark: for the work of analysts and for decisions on which security to buy and when to sell it.6 min
Money market funds: where cash is parked between decisionsA money market fund is a collective wrapper for short-term repo deals: the management company places unitholders' money against government securities as collateral on an overnight basis, the accrued interest builds up in the unit's net asset value, and the result is an instrument held not for growth but for time — until…5 min
What Is Really Inside a FundWhat sits inside a fund is not "the index" or "the market" but a specific basket of assets on a specific date, wrapped in a structure of rights and costs.6 min
Tracking error: how far a fund lags behind its indexTracking error is a measure of how far a fund's return diverges from the return of the index it has promised to replicate.6 min
BPIF, ETF and PIF: three forms of one ideaIt is the wrappers that differ, not the ideas.5 min