At the end of 2000, mutual funds contained more money than the banking system—about $7 trillion, of which more than $4 trillion was in stock funds. New funds were being created every day, and the mutual fund listings were taking up almost as much space as the stock tables. At the start of 2001, the point of absurdity was reached. The number of mutual funds topped eight thousand, which meant there were more mutual funds than there were stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq combined.
