The comparison performances of conventional unit trust funds versus islamic unit trust funds in Public Mutual: Risk-return trade off / Azimah Mat Pila @ Husin

A Mutual Fund is a trust that pools the savings of a number of investors who share a common financial goal. Over the past decade, mutual funds have increasingly become the investor's vehicle of choice for long-term investing. The
mutual fund industry or more popularly known as the unit trust industry in Malaysia began in 1959. Over a short history of slightly more than four decades, the period
from 1992 to 1996 witnessed the fastest industry growth in terms of the number of unit trust management companies established and the number of unit trust funds launched. The unit trust management companies grew from 13 to 30 while the unit trust funds almost doubled from 40 to 77.
According to Reilly & Brown (2003), a mutual fund is an investment vehicle that pools capital from clients purchasing their shares to invest in a portfolio of
securities, with purchasing and selling securities being decided by a fund manager.
Mutual funds or unit trust funds, also known as managed investments, allow you to buy a wide range of investments which may not ordinarily be available to you through
direct investment such as large commercial properties and corporate bonds .Unit trust funds, is important to investors because investors are motivated to ensure the
maximum return on their investments. Therefore information about the efficiency of unit trust funds is one of the major considerations in the fund-selection decision
(Berger et al. 1993)