Glossary of terms

OEIC stands for Open Ended Investment Company, which is a common structure for a collective investment scheme.

The price at which units in dual-priced unit trust funds are offered for sale by the fund manager - ie- the price which investors will pay to purchase those units. This no longer applies to Artemis funds as they operate a 'single-priced' model where units/shares are sold and bought at the 'mid price'. See 'mid price'.

Ongoing charges are the annual operating expenses of running a fund and are deducted from the net assets of the fund. Ongoing charges include fees paid for investment management (the ‘annual management charge’ below), custody, administration and the costs of independent oversight functions. They exclude portfolio transaction costs.

An open ended fund refers to investment vehicles such as unit trusts and OEICs where the number of units/shares can be varied according to demand.

In simple terms, options are contracts that give the holder the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an asset at an agreed price on or before a specified date. They are a financial derivative that represents a contract sold by one party (the option writer) to another party (the option holder). The contract offers the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy (call) or sell (put) a security or other financial asset at an agreed-upon price (the strike price) during a certain period of time or on a specific date (exercise date). Call options give the option to buy at certain price, so the buyer would want the stock to go up in order to make a profit. Put options give the option to sell at a certain price, so the buyer would want the stock to go down.

An ordinary share is a share (a 'stock') which represents an interest in a company and has full voting rights and dividend entitlements. A preference share is similar, but pays a predetermined fixed price dividend, with preference shareholders receiving priority over ordinary shareholders when receiving their dividends and in the distribution of assets.

Being 'overweight' is when a fund has a greater percentage weighting in a asset class, stock, sector or geographical region than the index or benchmark against which it is measured. For example, if a fund has a 5% weighting in the oil and gas sector, but its benchmark has a 3.5% weighting, the fund is 1.5% overweight.