Glossary

Short, direct definitions — click any term used on a fund page to come back here.

UCITS

Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities — the EU regulatory framework governing diversification, liquidity and disclosure for retail investment funds sold across Europe.

TER (Total Expense Ratio)

The fund's ongoing annual running costs, expressed as a percentage of assets, deducted automatically from the fund's returns. Lower is cheaper, all else equal — but TER doesn't capture every cost (see 'tracking difference').

ISIN

International Securities Identification Number — a unique 12-character code identifying a specific security, constant across every exchange it's listed on. The most reliable way to identify a fund unambiguously.

KIID / PRIIPs KID

Key Investor Information Document (or its successor, the PRIIPs Key Information Document) — a short, standardised, regulator-mandated disclosure document every UCITS fund must publish, covering risk, costs and past performance.

Domicile

The country under whose law a fund is legally established and regulated. Reflected in the first two letters of its ISIN — Irish-domiciled funds start with 'IE'. Domicile affects tax treatment, not where the fund actually invests.

Replication method

How a fund tracks its benchmark index. 'Physical (full)' means it buys every constituent; 'physical (sampling)' means it buys a representative subset; 'synthetic' means it uses a swap with a counterparty to deliver the index return instead of holding the underlying securities directly.

Accumulating (Acc)

A share class that automatically reinvests income (dividends or interest) back into the fund rather than paying it out in cash.

Distributing (Dist)

A share class that pays income out to investors as cash on a regular schedule, rather than reinvesting it.

Currency hedged

A fund that uses derivatives to offset the effect of exchange-rate movements between the underlying assets' currencies and the fund's base currency — aiming to isolate the return of the underlying assets from FX swings.

AUM (Assets Under Management)

The total market value of everything a fund holds. Larger AUM generally correlates with tighter bid-ask spreads and lower liquidity risk, though it isn't a guarantee of either.

Tracking difference

The actual gap between a fund's realised return and its benchmark's return over a period — a more complete cost measure than TER alone, since it also captures replication drag, sampling error and securities-lending revenue.