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Passive management

Passive management (also called passive investing) is an investing strategy that tracks a market-weighted index or portfolio. Passive management is most common on the equity market, where index funds track a stock market index, but it is becoming more common in other investment types, including bonds, commodities and hedge funds. The most popular method is to mimic the performance of an externally specified index by buying an index fund. By tracking an index, an investment portfolio typically gets good diversification, low turnover (good for keeping down internal transaction costs), and low management fees. With low fees, an investor in such a fund would have higher returns than a similar fund with similar investments but higher management fees and/or turnover/transaction costs. The bulk of money in Passive index funds are invested with the three passive asset managers: Black Rock, Vanguard and State Street. A major shift from assets to passive investments has taken place since 2008. The two firms with the largest amounts of money under management, BlackRock and State Street, primarily engage in passive management strategies. The first US market indexes date to the 1800s. The Dow Jones Transportation Average was established in 1884 with eleven stocks, mostly railroads. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was created in 1896 with 12 stocks in industrial manufacturing, energy and related industries. Both are still in use with modifications, but the Industrial Average, commonly called "The Dow" or "Dow Jones", is more prominent and came to be regarded as an important measure for the American economy as a whole. Other influential US indexes include the S&P 500 (1957), a curated list of 500 stocks selected by committee, and the Russell 1000 (1984) which tracks the largest 1,000 stocks by market capitalization. The FTSE 100 (1984) represents the largest publicly traded in the UK, while the MSCI World index (1969) tracks stock markets of the entire developed world. Unit investment trusts (UITs) are a type of U.S.

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Investment management
Investment management (sometimes referred to more generally as asset management) is the professional asset management of various securities, including shareholdings, bonds, and other assets, such as real estate, to meet specified investment goals for the benefit of investors. Investors may be institutions, such as insurance companies, pension funds, corporations, charities, educational establishments, or private investors, either directly via investment contracts/mandates or via collective investment schemes like mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, or REITs.
Index fund
An index fund (also index tracker) is a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) designed to follow certain preset rules so that the fund can replicate the performance ("track") of a specified basket of underlying investments. While index providers often emphasize that they are for-profit organizations, index providers have the ability to act as "reluctant regulators" when determining which companies are suitable for an index.
Mutual fund
A mutual fund is an investment fund that pools money from many investors to purchase securities. The term is typically used in the United States, Canada, and India, while similar structures across the globe include the SICAV in Europe ('investment company with variable capital') and open-ended investment company (OEIC) in the UK. Mutual funds are often classified by their principal investments: money market funds, bond or fixed income funds, stock or equity funds, or hybrid funds.
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