Active Trust

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and how much money could be withdrawn from the funds weird trading spreads and

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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