Mutual funds are a way of investing that gives a person an option of earning more money than a bank and less risk than the stock market. Usually, these funds are managed by stock brokers or other forms of licensed financiers. People can deposit money on the account and write checks on it, just as they can with a normal bank account. Although mutual funds are generally considered safe investments, they are not entirely without risk.

The risk happens in part, because of how mutual funds work. Instead of a person diversifying his portfolio on his own, he contributes the money to the account. The overall funds of the individual investors are pulled together to enable the mutual fund manager to make investments. A person in a mutual fund owns shares in the company. If the investments do well, the amount in the account grows. If the investments do poorly, an investor can lose the money he has in the account.

Investments in a mutual fund are handled by the fund's manager. In order to ensure the money performs as well as possible for the customers he manages, the manager gets paid based on the performance. The better his mutual fund does the more money he makes.

Good managers make sure to keep the funds diversified and do not put all of the money in the fund into one basket. They usually have no other job, although they may occasionally decide to invest the money they make back into the mutual funds that they manage.

Mutual funds are one way a person can invest money, but as it involves a person involving in the stock market, it will usually be only one investment made. Some people reduce their risk by spreading out their money over multiple funds.

A private investor can easily fund such funds, also called money market accounts. He may have to put a certain amount of cash into the account before he can open it. The rules of the mutual fund may necessitate that a person have an account for a certain amount of time before he can make any withdrawals from it.