How are U.S. households introduced to mutual funds?
Mutual fund–owning households often purchase their first mutual fund through employer-sponsored retirement plans: 59 percent purchased their first fund through that channel. Households that made their first mutual fund purchase more recently were more likely to have done so through employer-sponsored retirement plans. Among households that bought their first mutual fund in 2000 or later, 68 percent bought that first fund through such a plan, compared with 53 percent of households that first purchased mutual funds before 1990.
