There many kinds of stock funds, bond funds, and money market funds.

Although we do discuss the latter two types, this book is really about your getting the most from your investments. So let's talk about the types and groups of stocks that mutual funds specialize in.

In a simple way, there are 2 major categories of stocks, Value and Growth.

Don't bother looking them up in the dictionary, because as you know by now the stock market has its own way of using common words.

Remember P/E (price to earnings) ratios that we discussed in the stock market investing section?

There are market experts who subscribe to the theory that any stock with a P/E ratio that is less than the average is under-priced and so is a "value" stock, since any company is "obviously" worth the average.

These same experts say that a stock with a higher than average ratio is a growth stock. The idea is that since the market is efficient, investors will only pay a premium for a stock if its earnings are growing faster than the average company.

The top mutual fund managers each have their own way of picking growth and value stocks. Growth and value have more to do with a style of investing rather than just looking at numbers.

Other Stock Market Basics Topics:

1. Mutual Fund Advantages
2. History of Mutual Funds
3. NAV
4. Dollar Cost Averaging
5. General advice about choosing a fund
6. Mutual Fund Ratings
7. Evaluating Mutual Fund Investment Risk
8. Mutual Fund Share Classes
9. Mutual Fund Fees
10. The Mutual Fund Prospectus
11. How important is the manager's length of experience?
12. Why is the prospectus hard to understand?
13. Mutual Fund Annual Report
14. Comparing your fund to the competition
15. Comparing funds on an after-tax basis
16. Average Return on Investment
17. How Not to Pick a Mutual Fund
18. Cashing in Your Fund
19. When to Sell Your Fund
20. Mutual Funds and Asset Allocation
21. When to get started with a mutual fund
22. Types of Mutual Funds
23. Value Stock Funds
24. Growth Stock Funds
25. Small and Micro-cap Stocks
26. Mid Cap
27. Large Cap Companies
28. Income Stock Funds
29. Mutual Fund Index
30. Enhanced Index Funds
31. Sector Mutual Funds
32. Stock Market Sectors
33. Defensive Stocks
34. International Funds
35. Real Estate Mutual Funds
36. Socially Responsible Funds
37. Balanced Funds
38. Tax-Efficient Funds
39. Bond Convertible Funds
40. Junk Bond Funds
41. Mixtures of stock types
42. Closed End Funds
43. Exchange Traded Funds (ETF’s)
44. Stock Picking Strategy - Picking your own stocks?
45. Fund names, and what they really invest in
46. How to get started
47. Where can I start investing with no money?