What is a trust? What are the different types of trusts?
Trusts are a way of holding assets with a specific goal in mind. At its simplest, a trust can be used to avoid probate, a sometimes lengthy process in which a will is made public along with the assets bequeathed. A trust allows for fast transfer and no public disclosure. Depending on the current estate tax laws (the death tax) a trust can help preserve an estate exemption. e.g. Say the law reverts back to a $1M exemption. Note, this is $1M per deceased person, not per beneficiary. My wife and I happened to have assets of exactly $2M, and I die tomorrow. Now she has $2M, and when she passes, the estate has that $2M and estate taxes are based on this total, $1M fully taxed. But - If we set up trusts, that first million can be put into trust on my death, the interest and some principal going to the surviving spouse each year, but staying out of the survivor's estate. Second spouse dies, little or no tax due.  This is known as a bypass trust. Another example is a spendthrift trust. Say, hypothetically, my sister in law can't save a nickel to save her life. Spends every dime and then some. So the best thing my mother in law can do to provide for her is to leave her estate in trust with specific instructions on how to distribute some percent each year. This is not a tax dodge of any kind, it's strictly to protect the daughter from her own irresponsibility.  A medical needs trust is a variant of the above. It can provide income to a disabled person without impacting their government benefits adversely.  This scratches the surface, illustrating how trusts can be used, there are more variation on this, but I believe it covers the basics. With the interest in this topic, I'm adding another issue where the trust can be useful. In my article On my Death, Please, Take a Breath I described how an inherited IRA was destroyed by ignorance. The beneficiary, fearing the stock market, withdrew it all and was nailed by taxes. He was on social security and no other income, so by taking small withdrawals each year would have had nearly no tax due. (and could have avoided 'market' risk by selling within the IRA and buying treasuries or CDs.)  He didn't need a trust of course, just education. The deceased, his sister, might have used a Trust to manage the IRA and enforce limited withdrawals. Mixing IRAs and trust is complex, but the choice between a $2000 expense to create a trust or the $40K tax bill he got is pretty clear to me. He took pride in having sold out as the market soon tanked, but he could have avoided the tax loss as well. He was confusing the account (In this case an IRA, but it could have been a 401(k) or other retirement account) with the investments it contained. One can, and should, keep the IRA in tact, and simply adjust the allocation according to one's comfort level.  Note - Inheritance tax laws change frequently, and my answer above was an attempt to be generic. The current (2014) code allows $5.34M to be left by one decedent with no estate tax. "From a more technical point of view, a trust is a legal relationship between 3 parties: Trusts can take many forms. People setup trusts to ensure that property is used in a specific way. Owning a home with a spouse is a form of a trust. A pension plan is a trust. Protecting land from development often involves placing it in trust. Wealthy people use trusts for estate planning for a variety of reasons. There's no ""better"" or ""best"" trust on a general level... it all depends on the situation that you are in and the desired outcome that you are looking for." A trust is a financial arrangement to put aside money over a period of time (typically years), for a specific purpose to benefit someone. Two purposes of trusts are 1) providing for retirement and 2) providing for a child or minor. There are three parties to a trust: 1) A grantor, the person who establishes and funds a trust. 2) A beneficiary, a person who receives the benefits. 3) a trustee, someone who acts in a fiduciary capacity between the grantor and beneficiary. No one person can be all three parties. A single person can be two of out those three parties. A RETIREMENT trust is something like an IRA (individual retirement account). Here, a person can be both the grantor (contributor) to the IRA, and the beneficiary (a withdrawer after retirement). But you need a bank or a broker to act as a fiduciary, and to handle the reporting to the IRS (Internal Revenue Service). Pension plans have employers as grantors, employees as beneficiaries, and (usually) a third party as trustee. A MINORS' trust can be established under a Gift to the Minors' Act, or other trust mechanisms, such as a Generation Skipping Trust. Here, a parent may be both grantor and trustee (although usually a third party is a trustee). A sum of money is put aside over a period of years for the benefit of a minor, for a college education, or for the minor's attaining a certain age: a minimum of 18, sometimes 21, possibly 25 or even older, depending on when the grantor feels that the minor is responsible enough to handle the money.
CDS is the spread you pay in order to get protection in the event of a bond defaulting. I.e., eliminating your credit risk. Contrast this with ASW/OAS/Z-spread/Spread-to-bench which looks at the excess risk of a bond over the benchmark curve/yield. It's essentially looking at the same idea but derived differently.      Theoretically they move in the same direction but divergence can be an opportunity. Look up CDS basis. Most modern bank accounts can be set up to automatically pay bills for anyone, even someone who has no control over the account. This account would be in a trustee's name for the untrustworthy party. An automatic transfer could be set up from the source account to the irresponsible party's bank account to pay their allowance. It would be wise to remove all overdraft capability from the recipients account, but the whole system might help them learn some responsibility. There are more formal legal structures for forming a long term care-taking trust (with spendthrift provisions to protect the trust from legal action). The trust would need to be maintained by a trustee, resulting in maintenance fees on the principle. It might also help to know if there are legally recognized factors that impair the beneficiaries ability to take care of themselves (substance abuse, depression, age, mental impairment, etc.), but depending on state law, trusts can be designed very flexibly to cover the lifetime of an heir and even their heirs. "I am not a lawyer, and I am assuming trusts in the UK work similar to the way they work in the US... A trust is a legally recognized entity that can act in business transactions much the same way as a person would (own real property, a business, insurance, investments, etc.). The short answer is the trust is the owner of the property. The trust is established by a Grantor who ""funds"" the trust by transferring ownership of items from him or herself (or itself, if another trust or business entity like a corporation) to the trust.  A Trustee is appointed (usually by the Grantor) to manage the trust according to the conditions and terms specified in the trust. A Trustee would be failing in their responsibility (their fiduciary duty) if they do not act in accordance with the purposes of the trust. (Some trusts are written better than others, and there may or may not be room for broad interpretation of the purposes of the trust.)   The trust is established to provide some benefit to the Beneficiary. The beneficiary can be anyone or anything, including another trust. In the US, a living trust is commonly used as an estate planning tool, where the Grantor, Trustee, and Beneficiary are the same person(s). At some point, due to health or other reasons, a new trustee can be appointed. Since the trust is a separate entity from the grantor and trustee, and it owns the assets, it can survive the death of the grantor, which makes it an attractive way to avoid having to probate the entire estate. A good living trust will have instructions for the Trustee on what to do with the assets upon the death of the Grantor(s)." "A REIT is a real estate investment trust. It is a company that derives most of its gross income from and holds most of its assets in real estate investments, which, in this case, include either real property, mortgages, or both.  They provide a way for investors to get broad exposure in a real estate market without going to buy a bunch of properties themselves.  It also provides diversification within the real estate segment since REITs will often (but not necessarily) have either way more properties than an individual could get or have very large properties (like a few resorts) that would be too expensive for any one investor.  By law, they must pay at least 90% of their taxable income as dividends to investors, so they typically have a good dividend rate (possibly but not necessarily) at the expense of growth of the stock price.  Some of those dividends may be tax advantaged and some will not. An MLP is a master limited partnership.  These trade on the exchange like corporations, but they are not corporations. (Although often used in common language as synonyms, corporation and company are not the same thing.  Corporation is one way to organize a company under the law.)  They are partnerships, and when you buy a share you become a partner in the company.  This is an alternative form of ownership to being a shareholding.  In this case you are a limited partner, which means that you have limited liability as with stock.  The shares may appreciate or not, just like a stock, and you can generally sell them back to the market for a capital gain or loss under the same rules as a stock.  The main difference here from a practical point of view is taxes:  Partnerships (of any type) do no pay tax - Instead their income and costs are passed to the individual partners, who must then include it on their personal returns (Form 1040, Schedule E).  The partnership will send each shareholder a Schedule K-1 form at tax time.  This means you may have ""phantom income"" that is taxable even though cash never flowed through your hands since you'll have to account for the income of the partnership.  Many partnerships mitigate this by making cash distributions during the year so that the partners do actually see the cash, but this is not required.  On the other hand, if it does happen, it's often characterized as a return of capital, which is not taxable in the year that you receive it.  A return of capital reduces your cost basis in the partnership and will eventually result in a larger capital gain when you sell your shares. As with any investment, there are pros and cons to each investment type.  Of the two, the MLP is probably less like a ""regular"" stock since getting the Schedule K-1 may require some extra work at tax time, especially if you've never seen one before.  On the other hand, that may be worth it to you if you can find one that's appreciating in value and still returning capital at a good rate since this could be a ""best of everything"" situation where you defer tax and - when you eventually do pay, you pay at favorable capital gains rates - but still manage to get your cash back in hand before you sell. (In case not clear, my comments about tax are specific to the US.  No idea how this is treated elsewhere.) By real world example, I guess you meant a few tickers in each category?  You can find whole lists online.  I just did a quick search (""list of MLP"" and ""list of REIT""), found a list, and have provided the top few off of the first list that I found.  The lists were alphabetical by company name, so there's no explicit or implicit endorsement of these particular investments. Examples of REIT: Examples of MLP:" An investment trust is quoted just like a share. You just compare what you paid (your book cost) with its current share price, not the NAV, as a trust's price can be at a premium greater than the actual share price or a discount. "What is a 403b? A 403(b) plan is a tax-advantaged retirement savings plan available for public education organizations, some non-profit employers (only US Tax Code 501(c)(3) organizations), cooperative hospital service organizations and self-employed ministers in the United States. Kind of a rare thing. A bit more here: http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/teacheroptions.htm under investment options Equity Indexed Annuities are a special type of contract between you and an insurance company. During the accumulation period — when you make either a lump sum payment or a series of payments — the insurance company credits you with a return that is based on changes in an equity index, such as the S&P 500 Composite Stock Price Index. The insurance company typically guarantees a minimum return. Guaranteed minimum return rates vary. After the accumulation period, the insurance company will make periodic payments to you under the terms of your contract, unless you choose to receive your contract value in a lump sum. For more information, please see our ""Fast Answer"" on Equity Indexed Annuities, and read FINRA's investor alert entitled Equity-Indexed Annuitiies — A Complex Choice. So perhaps ""equity indexed annuities"" is the more correct thing to search for and not ""insurance funds""?" "My teacher always says the property interest the beneficiary ""holds"" or ""possesses"" is an equitable interest.  I might just seem out of place here because it's a legal term and probably not commonplace outside that sphere. But the beneficiaries equitable interest is possessed or held in that regard. From this equitable interest is the income stream.   If that just seems like a bunch of gibberish to you than don't mind me, just trying to learn the ins and outs of trusts not the world of finance generally." "They pretty much already have what you are looking for.  They are called Unit Investment Trusts.  The key behind these is (a)  the trust starts out with a fixed pool of securities.  It is completely unmanaged and there is no buying or selling of the securities, (b) they terminate after a fixed period of time, at which time all assets are distributed among the owners. According to Investment Company Institute, ""securities in a UIT are   professionally selected to meet a stated investment objective,  such   as growth,  income, or capital appreciation."" UITs sell a fixed    number of units at one-time  public offering. Securities in a UIT do    not trade actively, rather, UITs use a  strategy known as    buy-and-hold. The UIT purchases a certain amount of  securities and    holds them until its termination date. Holdings rarely change   throughout the life of the trust so unit holders know exactly what    they're  investing in, and the trust lists all securities in its    prospectus. Unit trusts  normally sell redeemable units - this    obligates the trust to re-purchase  investor's units at their net    asset value at the investors request." "Ditto to MD-Tech, but from a more ""philosophical"" point of view: When you buy stock, you own it, just like you own a cell phone or a toaster or a pair of socks that you bought. The difference is that a share of stock means that you own a piece of a corporation. You can't physically take possession of it and put it in your garage, because if all the stock-holders did that, then all the company's assets would be scattered around all the stock-holder's garages and the company couldn't function. Like if you bought a 1/11 share in a football team, you couldn't take one of the football players home and keep him in your closet, because then the team wouldn't be able to function. (I might want to take one of the cheerleaders home, but that's another subject ...) In pre-electronic times, you could get a piece of paper that said, ""XYZ Corporation - 1 share"". You could take physical possession of this piece of paper and put it in your filing cabinet. I'm not sure if you can even get such certificates any more; I haven't seen one in decades. These days it's just recorded electronically. That doesn't mean that you don't own it. It just means that someone else is keeping the records for you. It's like leaving your car in a parking lot. It's still your car. The people who run the parking lot doesn't own it. They are keeping it for you, but just because they have physical possession doesn't make it theirs." "This is the biggest blunder I see in money handling.  ""Oh I'm a good person and everyone knows my intentions are good.  And they're really happy with me right now, so it'll stay that way forever, right?  So I can just do anything and they'll trust me.""  And then in hindsight 10 years later, the person realizes ""wow, I was really stubborn and selfish to just assume that.  No wonder it blew up.""  Anyway, to that end, your requirement that all the money be in one account and ""this will simplify taxes"" is horsepuckey.  No one will believe a legitimate financial advisor needs that, but it's exactly what a swindler would do. And that's the problem.  If anything goes wrong, their trust in you will be forgotten, some will say you intended to scam all along, and the structure will be the first thing to convict you.   Money makes everyone mistrusting.  Ironically, the concept is called a ""trust"", and there's a wide body of law and practice for Person X responsibly handling the money of Person Y.  The classic example is Person Y is a corporation (say, a charity) and Person X is on the Board of Directors.  It's the same basic thing.   The doctrine is:" This isn't a DIY area. You should talk to a lawyer about setting up a trust. Also, does the irresponsible person acknowledge that they are irresponsible? Are the legally competent? Or are you looking at a 20 year old with a big check coming down? "I remember in the 19th and early 20th century was the problem of Trusts set up by the wealthy to avoid taxes (hence the term ""Anti-Trust"") That's not what antitrust means.  The trusts in that case were monopolies that used their outsized influence to dominate customers and suppliers.  They weren't for tax evasion purposes.  Trusts were actually older than a permanent income tax.  Antitrust law was passed around the same time as a permanent income tax becoming legal.  Prior to that income taxes were temporary taxes imposed to pay for wars.   The primary ways to evade taxes was to move expenses out of the personal and into businesses or charities.  The business could pay for travel, hotels, meals, and expenses.  Or a charity could pay for a trip as a promotion activity (the infamous safari to Africa scheme).  Charities can pay salaries to employees, so someone could fund a charity (tax deductible) and then use that money to pay people rather than giving gifts.  If you declare your house as a historical landmark, a charity could maintain it.   Subscribe to magazines at the office and set them in the waiting room after you read them.  Use loyalty program rewards from business expenses for personal things.  Sign up for a benefit for all employees at a steep discount and pay everyone a little less as a result.  Barter.  You do something for someone else (e.g. give them a free car), and they return the favor.  Call it marketing or promotion (""Trump is carried away from his eponymous Tower in a sparkling new Mercedes Benz limousine."").   Another option is to move income and expenses to another tax jurisdiction that has even fewer laws about it.  Where the United States increasingly cracked down on personal expenses masquerading as business expenses, many jurisdictions would be happy just to see the money flow through and sit in their banks briefly.   Tax policy is different now than it was then.  Many things that would have worked then wouldn't work now.  The IRS is more aggressive about insisting that some payments be considered income even if the organization writes the check directly to someone else.  It's unclear what would happen if United States tax rates went back to the level they had in the fifties or even the seventies.  Would tax evasion become omnipresent again?  Or would it stay closer to current levels.   The rich actually pay a higher percentage of the overall income taxes now than they did in the forties and fifties.  And the rich in the United States pay a higher percentage of the taxes paid than the rich in other countries with higher marginal rates.  Some of this may be more rich people in the US than other countries, but tax policy is part of that too.  High income taxes make it hard to become rich." "Well the People's Trust's IPO prospectus is now (2017-09-08) available for all to read (or there's a smaller ""information leaflet"").  (May need some disclaimers to be clicked to get access).  Both have a ""highlights"" bullet-point list: Coverage here has a comment thread with some responses by the founder attempting to answer the obvious objection that there's other multi-manager trusts on a discount (e.g Alliance Trust on ~ -5.5%), so why would you buy this one on a (very small) premium?  (Update: There's also another recent analysis here.) Personally, I'm thinking the answer to the original question ""How is The People's Trust not just another Investment Trust?"" is pretty much: ""it's just another Investment Trust"" (albeit one with its own particular quirks and goals).  But good luck to them." "This is the textbook for the course. Probably a little excessive for a casual purchase lol but it literally has everything you would ever need to know about trusts and is like ~1500 pages. Even goes into tax and what isn't a trust relationship for example corporation's assets and other interesting stuff.   https://www.amazon.com/Loring-Rounds-Trustees-Handbook-2017/dp/145487158X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1507755967&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=trusts+charles+rounds  As far as other sources go I don't really think I am in a position to recommend much as I am still learning. This website: https://www.quimbee.com/activity ; covers a bunch of basic law school courses in general. but again, its a paid subscription but I think it is only like $15 a month. I use it all the time to help me practice and learn the concepts better for various subjects. I'm a 3L now and that website has helped me and also a ton of my friends and has videos which I find much more helpful than just reading walls and walls of legal text. If you did the ""Wills, Trusts, and Estates"" section, that alone is probably worth the $15 monthly fee. I can even refer you and get a $25 amazon giftcard apparently lol" "According to what little information is available currently, this fund is most akin to an actively managed exchange traded fund rather than an investment trust. An investment trust is an actively managed, closed-end fund that is tradeable on the stock market.  ""Closed-end"" means that there are a fixed number of shares available for trading, so if you wish to buy or sell shares in a closed-end fund you need to find someone willing to sell or buy shares.  ""Actively managed"" means that the assets are selected by the fund managers in the belief that they will perform well.  This is in contrast to a ""passively managed"" fund which simply tracks an underlying index.   The closed-end nature of investment trusts means that the share price is not well correlated to the value of the underlying assets.  Indeed, almost all UK investment trusts trade at a significant discount to their net asset value.  This reflects their historic poor performance and relatively weak liquidity.  Of course there are some exceptions to this. Examples of open-end funds are unit trust (US = mutual funds) and ETFs (exchange traded funds).  They are ""open-end"" funds in the sense that the number of shares/units available will change according to demand.  Most importantly, the price of a share/unit will be strongly correlated to the net asset value of the underlying portfolio.  In general, for an open-end fund, if the net asset value of the fund is X and there are Y shares/units outstanding, then the price of a share/unit will be X/Y.  Historic data shows that passively managed funds (index trackers) ""always"" outperform actively managed funds in the long term.  One of the big issues with actively managed funds is they have relatively high management fees.  The Peoples Trust will be charging about 1% with a promise that this should come down over time.  Compare this to a fee of 0.05% on a large, major market index tracking ETF.  Further, the 1% headline fee being touted by Peoples Trust is a somewhat misleading, since they are paying their employees bonuses with shares in the fund.  This will cause dilution of the net asset value per share and can be read as addition management fees by proxy.  Since competent fund managers will demand high incomes, bonus shares could easily double the management fees, depending on the size of the fund. In summary, history has shown that the promises of active fund managers rarely (if ever) come to fruition. Personally, I would not consider this to be an attractive investment and would look more towards a passively managed major market index ETF with low management fees."