A collective investment fund vehicle is any investment that groups together individuals to enter into investments in order to benefit more than investing individually. The many advantages of investing collectively include: the ability to have professional money managers manage the buying and selling of individual investments; the ability for these same managers to mitigate our risk, and spread this risk out among more choices; the ability to share the costs inherent in investing, providing for proper diversification among asset classes; and providing extensive research and analysis. Collective investment vehicles can also be known as mutual funds (a term used in the United States), investment funds, or managed funds.