ShmoopTube

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Finance a la shmoop what are assets under management?

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[People meditating in a park] yeah that's how it's pronounced.... the yoga mantra AUM mutual funds charge

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fees based on the assets they have under management the larger the asset base the

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bigger the fees they can charge and you know size matters mm-hmm all right well

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most fees are based on a given set of percentages of the total and a lot of [Woman approaches starbucks employee]

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people only want the big mutual funds because well they pay their employees

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the big bucks and presumably big money buys big talent and that's generally [Boy strikes baseball]

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true in baseball right well in a mutual fund family for example there are break

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points in fees that look a lot like the structure of break points in the

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progressive tax system of the United States that is different percentages are

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charged on different levels of you know size for the first billion dollars under

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management a fund might charge 2% like 20 million dollars a year for managing

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that first billion but then from one to five billion the fee might be one and a

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half percent so on that next four billion the fee might be sixty

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million bucks a year then from five billion in assets under management to 15

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billion ie that next 10 billion in size the fee might be one percent or a hundred

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million dollars on that next ten billion of assets for enormous mega funds like [Mutual fund breakpoint table]

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ones with over fifty billion dollars in assets well the fee on that last dollar

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might be just a third of 1% or less and that fee structure creates a wonderfully

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stable revenue base to the fund manager why and like why is this important well [Man discussing mutual funds by a farm]

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you know the stock market volatile so the assets go up and down with the market right well why

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is it valuable because the lion's share of fees are generated from the [Lion walking in a desert]

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"early" part of the fund i.e the low dollar asset amount where the fees

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are a relatively high percentage think about a mega fund with 50 billion

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dollars in AUM well the fee on that last billion might [$50 dollar sack of cash in mega fund]

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be just that 30 basis points or 0.3 percent or just three million dollars

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note that the fee on the first billion dollars of this

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fund was 2% or 20 million bucks a year so if that fund contracts well it's not

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that much of a loss like it could lose that last 10 billion in assets, assets

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under management by going from 50 billion to 40 billion which would be 20%

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of the total of the fund but only lose like 3% of its revenues for the

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privilege of managing all that money why this fee structure?

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well the marginal additional work to manage 50 billion over 40 billion well

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just isn't that much extra work got it that's how assets under management

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generally work at big mutual fund families and that's the lion share of [Mutual fund breakpoint table and lion shadow appears]

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actively managed money at least today in this country so yeah while the fund

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manager sits back and collects those glorious fees while she can be at one [Fund manager performing yoga and woman carrying pile of cash]

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with the universe and keep chanting that AUM, as she collects her fees say it with

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me fee collecting...[Man meditating]

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