Fund Fact Sheet

A fund fact sheet is a short document, usually one or two pages, that summarises an investment fund at a point in time. Fund companies publish one for each mutual fund, exchange-traded fund (ETF) or similar product, normally every month or quarter. It sets out the fund's investment objective, recent performance, costs, largest holdings and a set of portfolio statistics, so an investor or adviser can size up the fund at a glance.

A fact sheet is a marketing summary, not the legal offering document. In the United States the binding disclosure is the prospectus; the fact sheet counts as advertising and must follow SEC Rule 482 and FINRA Rule 2210, which among other things require standardised one-, five- and ten-year performance figures and fair, balanced wording. In the EU, retail funds must also provide a regulated key information document, while in the UK the FCA's new Consumer Composite Investments product summary began replacing those documents from 6 April 2026.

A fund fact sheet is like the nutrition label on a food packet. The packet's full ingredient list and legal small print exist elsewhere, but the label tells you the main things quickly: what is inside, in what amounts, and what it will cost you.

Just as a label lets you compare two cereals in the supermarket aisle, a fact sheet lets you put two funds side by side. It does not tell you which one is right for you, and it shows past results, which never guarantee future ones.

Most fact sheets open with the fund's name, ticker symbol, launch date, benchmark, portfolio manager and fund size. Then come performance tables, usually total return over periods such as three months, year to date, one, five and ten years, with longer periods shown as an annualized return and compared with the benchmark. Costs follow, led by the expense ratio and any sales charge, along with risk measures such as standard deviation and the portfolio turnover ratio. The rest of the page describes the portfolio.

• Country and sector breakdown. The share of the portfolio invested in each country and in each sector (such as technology or financials), usually as percentages of net assets.
• Number of holdings. How many separate securities the fund owns; a rough guide to how concentrated or diversified it is.
• Top 10 holdings. The ten largest positions and their weights. Together they show how much of the fund rides on a few names.
• Top five contributors and detractors. The holdings that added most to, and took most from, the fund's return over the period. A holding's contribution is roughly its average weight multiplied by its return.
• Top five industries. The five industries with the largest weights, a finer cut than sectors.
• Quality distribution. For bond funds, the share of assets in each credit rating band (AAA, AA, A, BBB and below), showing exposure to credit risk.
• Maturity distribution. The share of bond assets falling due within set ranges, such as under one year, one to five years and over ten years.
• Yield-to-maturity distribution. The share of bond holdings in each band of yield to maturity, showing how much sits in higher-yielding, usually riskier, paper.
• Share-class net assets. The net asset value of the particular share class described, as distinct from the total net assets of the whole fund across all classes.
• Portfolio holdings. A full or partial list of what the fund owns, usually as of month- or quarter-end; US funds also file complete holdings with the SEC.
• Distribution schedule. How often the fund pays a dividend or income (monthly, quarterly, annually) and when any capital gains distribution is expected.
• Median and weighted-average market cap. Two measures of the typical company size in an equity fund, based on market capitalization. The median is the size of the middle holding; the weighted average gives larger positions more influence, so it is pulled up by a few giants.
• Daily dividend factor. For funds that accrue income every day, such as bond and money market funds, the amount of income earned per share for each day, which is added up and paid at month-end.

Fact sheets are most useful for comparing funds that aim to do the same thing. A reader can check whether the fund really holds what its name suggests, how its costs compare, how concentrated it is, and how it has done against its benchmark over several periods rather than just the most recent. Bond investors should read the quality and maturity tables together with the fund's weighted average maturity and 30-day SEC yield.

A fact sheet is a snapshot: holdings and weights may already have changed by the time it is read. Ratings often printed on the page, such as the Morningstar Rating or Lipper Ratings, rest on past results. Trading costs, tax effects and some risks appear only in the prospectus and annual report. The fact sheet should therefore start the research, not end it.

• FINRA Rule 2210: Communications with the Public
• Investor.gov (SEC): Mutual Funds and Exchange-Traded Funds