Читать книгу Mutual Funds For Dummies - Eric Tyson - Страница 96

Unit investment trusts (UITs) have much in common with closed-end funds (see Chapter 2). UITs take an amount of money (for example, $100 million) and buy a number of securities (such as 70 large-company U.S. stocks) that meet the objectives of the UIT. Unlike a closed-end fund (and mutual funds in general), however, a UIT does not make any changes to its holdings over time — it simply holds the same, fixed portfolio. This holding of a diversified portfolio can be advantageous because it reduces trading costs and possible tax bills.

With that said, UITs do suffer from the following major flaws:

 Significant upfront commissions: Brokers like to push UITs for the same reason that they like to pitch load mutual funds — for the juicy commission that they ultimately deduct upfront from your investment. Commissions are usually around 5 percent, so for every $10,000 that you invest into a UIT, $500 goes out of your investment and into the broker’s pocket. Although UITs do have ongoing fees, their fees tend to be lower than those of most actively managed mutual funds — they’re typically in the neighborhood of 0.2 percent per year. As an alternative, you can buy excellent no-load funds (see Chapter 7), which, because you’re buying the fund directly from an investment company and without the involvement of a broker, charge you no commission. The best no-load funds also have reasonable management fees, and some charge even less than UITs charge (such as the index funds that I discuss in Chapter 10).

 Lack of liquidity: Especially in the first few years after a particular UIT is issued, you won’t readily find an active market in which you can easily sell your UIT. In the event that you can find someone who’s interested in buying a UIT that you’re interested in selling, you may have to sell the UIT at a discount from its actual market value at the time.

 Lack of ongoing management oversight: Because UITs buy and hold a fixed set of securities until the UIT is liquidated (years down the road), they’re more likely to get stuck holding some securities that end up worthless. For example, compared to the best bond mutual funds (see Chapter 12), bond UITs have had a greater tendency to end up holding bonds in companies that go bankrupt.