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Finance a la shmoop what is the investment company Act of 1940? well

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think of it as the retail investor mutual fund act corruption, scandal, anger

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and angst after the Great Depression spurred all kinds of laws designed to [Men sitting on a stone wall]

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protect Joe farmer from getting railed again the way he did in the late 20s and

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30s the goal of the government wasn't to give investment advice in any way shape

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or form but rather to create a trustworthy and level playing field such

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that all players in the investment world educated and none would at least have the [Football player investors appear]

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opportunity to get a fair deal in one type of investment or another

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well the acts of 1933 think IPOs and 1934 secondary trading set in motion the

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build and infrastructure of the SEC which regulated more or less everything

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in this financial world stocks bonds and other hybrids but then along came this [M.F Industry man walking along the street]

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new whiz-bang investment growth engine in the 1930s called the mutual fund

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industry which was in part a reaction to the many unschooled farmer retail

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investors having lost all their money in the crash well the notion was that for a

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relatively small fee they would hire educated college boys to do their [College boy studying]

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investing for them so there was born the mutual fund industry and about five

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minutes later was born the corruption in the mutual fund industry unclear fee [Mutual fund industry and mutual fund corruption babies appear]

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structures, ambiguous commission rates, unfair disclosures for things like when

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and how much money could be withdrawn from the funds weird trading spreads and

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commissions being given out with no real thought as to what was fair, fair to the

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investors and so on all kinds of bad dealings so along came the 1940 act

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which then essentially regulated fair and square dealings in the mutual fund

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biz so that the whole experience of not necessarily sophisticated investors [Man throws stack of money at market]

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profiting from the stock market was mutually fun for more or less

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everyone who dove in so yeah in a nutshell that's the major financial

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legislation of the 30s and 40s in three acts Shakespeare couldn't have done it

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better and hopefully your investing is not a tragedy [Shakespear appears]

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