A mutual fund that invests in companies which it determines to be underpriced by fundamental measures. Assuming that a company's share price will not remain undervalued indefinitely, the fund looks to make money by buying before the expected upturn. Value funds tend to focus on safety rather than growth, and often choose investments providing dividends as well as capital appreciation. They invest in companies that have low P/E ratios, and stocks that have fallen out of favor with mainstream investors, either due to changing investor preferences, a poor quarterly earnings report, or hard times in a particular industry. Value stocks are often mature companies that have stopped growing and that use their earnings to pay dividends. Thus value funds produce current income (from the dividends) as well as long-term growth (from capital appreciation once the stocks become popular again). They tend to have more conservative and less volatile returns than growth funds.

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