breakpoint

Breakpoint

A predetermined contribution amount in a mutual fund making the investor eligible for a reduction in sales charges. Mutual Funds are required to give a description of these breakpoints and the eligibility requirements in their fund prospectus. It is prudent for investors to be aware of these.

Investopedia Commentary

An example of breakpoints on a front-load mutual fund would be a charge of 6.25% on investments of less than $25,000, a charge of 5.5% on sales of $25,000 to $99,999 and 4.75% on investments above $100,000.

By reaching or surpassing a breakpoint, an investor will face a lower sales charge and save money.

Related Links

Mutual Fund Breakpoints: A Break Worth Taking
Class B Mutual Fund Shares: Do They Make the Grade?
Mutual Fund Basics Tutorial

See also: Back End Load, Breakpoint Sales, Front-End Load, Letter Of Intent, Mutual Fund, No-Load Fund, Open-End Fund

Also spelled: Break point, break-point

breakpoint

The cumulative level of purchases of shares in a mutual fund that is required before an individual purchaser can qualify for a reduced sales commission. Compare letter of intent. See also right of accumulation.

breakpoint programming
A point in a program that, when reached, triggers some special behavior useful to the process of debugging; generally, breakpoints are used to either pause program execution, and/or dump the values of some or all of the program variables. Breakpoints may be part of the program itself; or they may be set by the programmer as part of an interactive session with a debugging tool for scrutinizing the program's execution.
(1999-06-07)