Forward Spread

Finance a la shmoop what is forward pricing?

well open-ended mutual funds trade the shares within them all day long buy

orders sell orders that stuff but the price of a given share of that mutual [Mutual funds appear with share price]

fund does not in fact change every second of the trading day like the

shares do inside of it like its NAV price does not suddenly change every

minute too many complexities and too many

moving parts derived from a free computer in every bathroom era when

manual labor had to add numbers and figure out totals we just can't operate [Person jotting down numbers]

funds such that they adjust every second of the day especially when the larger

mutual funds can have literally thousands of investments in them well

the price of a share of a mutual fund is its net asset value and is derived by

adding up all the bid prices offered to buy a given security and then adding in

cash and accounting for any other special holdings like a private

company's not yet public and then taking a discount to them that's fair because

there's more risk when they're not public and traded in the market setting

a price on them every minute right all right and then once you have all that

totaled you divide by the number of shares outstanding of the mutual funds [NAV formula appears]

so if you put in an order at 10:37 a.m. to buy a thousand shares of a given [Man checks watch]

mutual fund the seller can't actually give you an exact price that's how you

want to buy that fund the close yesterday was $11.87 share in the market

today is flattish so it's highly likely that at the close of this day well the

price will be about 11.87 but who knows it might be eleven eighty nine it might

be eleven eighty four or somewhere else in that neighborhood so the fund has to

give you forward pricing such that you commit well about a thousand times about

11.87 or 11,870 dollars to buy

these thousand mutual fund shares but you won't get the exact total or bill I

guess until the market is closed and the totals have been you know totaled and [Bell rings and clock strikes 4pm]

then at that point you can become the proud new owner of a thousand shares of

the feeling is mutual fund so this situation revolves around the exact

act number of mutual funds shares method of buying meaning you want a thousand

shares of the mutual fund you want to pay $11.87 and you pay 11,870

dollars for the privilege okay [Man discussing purchasing of mutual fund]

the much more common way of buying shares in a mutual fund company is to

buy fractional shares and simply commit a dollar amount that's about what you

want to invest in the mutual fund like let's say you had about 12 grand that

you wanted to invest and that's it 12 grand so on that day you're actually

rooting for the NAV to go down the day that you actually buy the fund [Girl celebrating for NAV to decrease]

well why would you root for it to go down? well you don't own it yet if it

goes down you get the same shares cheaper right because the more it falls

the higher the number of shares at NAV of that mutual fund you're buying with

your 12 grand so if the nav closes at 11.87 and you're buying 12

grand worth well then you get twelve thousand dollars divided by 11.87

or one 1,011 shares right and there gets to be

fractionals in there as well if you really want to get technical that's [Man discussing fractionals]

forward pricing not to be confused with fast forward pricing which requires the

use of a remote control and two double-a batteries [Remote control and batteries appear]