bucket fund

A primitive version of what today would most likely be a "mutual fund" or similar instrument.

The origins of the term date to the stock market bubble of the Roaring Twenties, where at the peak of the frenzy individual speculators were offering "$600 for radio" - in this case, not an actual AM radio receiver, but one share of stock in RCA, which was being hyped in those days as vociferously as Internet-related stocks at the turn of the millennium.

$600 was a lot of money in those days, so those who couldn't afford to buy the stock directly would collectively buy into a bucket fund and the bucket fund would buy the stock, hold it briefly, then sell it to repay the individual speculators.

Eventually the bubble burst and everyone lost their shirt.

It seems that everyone these days is peddling mutual funds, exchange traded funds, funds, funds, funds. Banks, trust companies, credit unions, insurance companies... all are getting on the bandwagon and unleashing their most voracious commission salespeople. No wonder, though, as the various inscrutable offerings are a nightmare of fees - front-end loads, back-end loads, management expense ratios - to the point where the modern equivalent to a bucket fund is a leaky bucket where 2% of your life slavings may well be gone every year just in fees. Over a quarter century, that might add up to half your capital.

So basically, the leaky bucket fund with its active management has to outperform the market by 2% annually every darned year just to cover all of the bull-shovel fees. Not all of them do. It's a little like a stockbroker proudly pointing out his shiny new boat at the marina only to be asked "but where are the customer's yachts?"