Mutual Funds Are About to Get the ETF Treatment. Here's What It Means for Investors

The drawing of a man in a blue suit coat and wearing a yellow tie holding one box that says mutual funds and one that says etfs.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is on the verge of allowing major changes to the way exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and traditional mutual funds are structured. Specifically, an SEC ruling could allow dozens of asset managers to offer existing mutual funds as ETF share classes.

That might sound like technical minutiae … a distinction without a difference. After all, investors already have thousands of ETFs and mutual funds to choose from. What difference would it make if the ETFs themselves were simply a share class of a mutual fund?