Bid price

The price that a dealer will pay for securities in the market. Thus it is the lower of the two prices that the dealer will quote for any security. For a mutual fund, it is the price at which the fund management company will buy in units from investors. (See also offer price and spread.)

Balanced fund

A mutual fund that invests in a combination of ordinary share and bonds (including government debt). As such, it has a wide spread of assets and could be considered medium risk, in contrast to funds that are invested wholly in equities (high risk) and wholly in bonds (low risk). The consequence of this should be that the investment return of a balanced fund will be pedestrian compared with an equity fund during a bull market, but will do well during a bear market.