ETF vs. Mutual Fund: What’s The Difference? (2024)

FAQs

What is the main difference between ETFs and mutual funds? ›

With a mutual fund, you buy and sell based on dollars, not market price or shares. And you can specify any dollar amount you want—down to the penny or as a nice round figure, like $3,000. With an ETF, you buy and sell based on market price—and you can only trade full shares.

Unlike mutual funds, an ETF trades like a common stock on a stock exchange. ETFs experience price changes throughout the day as they are bought and sold. *ETFs typically have higher daily liquidity and lower fees than mutual fund shares, making them an attractive alternative for individual investors.

CEFs are actively managed, whereas most ETFs are designed to track an index's performance. CEFs achieve leverage through issuance of debt and preferred shares, as well as through financial engineering. ETFs are precluded from issuing debt or preferred shares.

Both managed funds and ETFs are pools of money invested in assets by a professional fund manager. The chief difference between ETFs and managed funds is that units of the ETF are listed on an exchange, meaning the value of ETFs can change throughout the day like shares. Managed funds are typically valued once a day.

Mutual funds and ETFs may hold stocks, bonds, or commodities. Both can track indexes, but ETFs tend to be more cost-effective and liquid since they trade on exchanges like shares of stock. Mutual funds can offer active management and greater regulatory oversight at a higher cost and only allow transactions once daily.

ETFs have several advantages for investors considering this vehicle. The 4 most prominent advantages are trading flexibility, portfolio diversification and risk management, lower costs versus like mutual funds, and potential tax benefits.

ETFs often generate fewer capital gains for investors than mutual funds. This is partly because so many of them are passively managed and don't change their holdings that often.

Neither mutual funds nor ETFs are perfect. Both can offer comprehensive exposure at minimal costs, and can be good tools for investors. The choice comes down to what you value most. If you prefer the flexibility of trading intraday and favor lower expense ratios in most instances, go with ETFs.

Low Cost — An important advantage of mutual funds is their low cost. Due to huge economies of scale, mutual funds schemes have a low expense ratio. Expense ratio represents the annual fund operating expenses of a scheme, expressed as a percentage of the fund's daily net assets.

Liquidation of ETFs is strictly regulated; when an ETF closes, any remaining shareholders will receive a payout based on what they had invested in the ETF. Receiving an ETF payout can be a taxable event.

What is the single biggest ETF risk? ›

The single biggest risk in ETFs is market risk.

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) also tend to be open-end funds, but they can also be structured as unit investment trusts (UITs). ETFs trade throughout the day similar to stocks, whereas mutual funds are only traded at their NAV at the end of the day.

The low investment threshold for most ETFs makes it easy for a beginner to implement a basic asset allocation strategy that matches their investment time horizon and risk tolerance. For example, young investors might be 100% invested in equity ETFs when they are in their 20s.

The administrative costs of managing ETFs are commonly lower than those for mutual funds. ETFs keep their administrative and operational expenses down through market-based trading. Because ETFs are bought and sold on the open market, the sale of shares from one investor to another does not affect the fund.

Even though they contain a basket of securities, ETFs are traded like a single security on a major U.S. stock exchange. ETFs can be bought and sold intra-day, just like any security. In contrast, mutual funds are priced and traded at the end of each trading day based on the fund's net asset value (NAV).

Key Takeaways. Many mutual funds are actively managed while most ETFs are passive investments that track the performance of a particular index. ETFs can be more tax-efficient than actively managed funds due to their lower turnover and fewer transactions that produce capital gains.

For instance, some ETFs may come with fees, others might stray from the value of the underlying asset, ETFs are not always optimized for taxes, and of course — like any investment — ETFs also come with risk.