Family of Funds

Mutual fund company offering funds with many investment objectives. A fund family may offer several types of stock, bond, and money market funds and allow free switching among their funds. Large no-load fund families include American Century, Fidelity, Dreyfus, T. Rowe Price, USAA, and Vanguard. Most major brokerage houses such as Merrill Lynch, Smith Barney, Goldman Sachs, and UBS also sponsor fund families of their own. Many independent firms such as American Funds, Federated, Loomis-Sayles, Putnam, and Pioneer distribute their funds with a sales charge through brokerage firms and financial planners. Many investors find it convenient to place most of their assets with one or two fund families because of the convenience offered by such switching privileges. In recent years, several discount brokerage firms have offered the ability to shift assets from one fund family to another, making it less important than it had been to consolidate assets in one fund family. See also Investment Company.

Group of mutual funds managed by the same investment management company. Each fund typically has a different objective; one may be a growth-oriented stock fund, whereas another may be a bond fund or a money market fund. Shareholders in one of the funds can usually switch their money into any of the family's other funds, sometimes at no charge.