A mutual fund is an investment that pools your money with the money of other investors who want the same things as you - to make money!

People with a lot of investing experience (known as professional portfolio managers), invest money to buy shares in companies that will help achieve the goals of the fund. They're plugged into the latest market research and information to help them make smart decisions.

Depending on whether the goals of the fund are aggressive (which means the potential to make a lot of money but with a higher risk of losing money), or conservative (not so risky please), the portfolio manager combines investments from three asset classes: 

When you invest in a mutual fund, you buy "units". Each unit represents a piece of every company that the fund holds. The value of the fund's units moves up and down with the value of the individual investments in the fund. If the value of the companies in the fund goes up, then so does the value of your units. If the value goes down, so does the value of your investment.

Of course, you can sell your fund units at any time if you really need to. But when you see your money working so hard, you may just want to leave it alone and let it continue to grow.

One more thing - Before you invest in a mutual fund, you'll get a Simplified Prospectus (a document full of fund information, rules and regulations). It contains a lot of important facts you might need to know about how your fund works, what companies you're investing in, and how your fund is being managed.