MFS Funds

A friend is invested in this fund so I looked it up and it has a 5.75% load.
When do they charge this load? Thanks, and Happy New Year to all

The 5.75% load is a sales commission that is taken from the amount you invest each time you purchase new shares. So $5.75 of every $100 is deducted off the top and the balance of $94.25 is applied to the purchase of the underlying investment's shares. This is a one time fee upon purchase. It is not reassessed again unless you invest new money.

it is assessed for service to your mutual fund account. in this case, it is intended to pay the servicing financial advisor. a portion of it (the .75) is retained by the mutual fund company to cover its costs (and profit margin) to service your account.

as blixet said, it is a one time charge. likewise, if you transfer money FROM this mutual fund to any other mutual fund operated by the same company (or family of companies) then you would not pay this cost again. charge is also for preferred shares (A Shares) and as such, you will carry lower ongoing expense costs associated with the fund.

what this means is that if you are investing for the long term (generally 7 years or longer) then it will be considerably cheaper for you to pay the up front cost. if you are investing for the short term, then consider using the no-load variant of the same fund. short term, the costs are lower for the no-load variant.

it is assessed for service to your mutual fund account. in this case, it is intended to pay the servicing financial advisor. a portion of it (the .75) is retained by the mutual fund company to cover its costs (and profit margin) to service your account.
To add to 1MO, I also think it's important to note that the advisor is not getting paid the entire 5.75% to provide you the service either. The bulk of the fee (after the mutual fund company is paid) goes to whatever securities platform (company) that holds the account. Most likely, the advisor's share is around 1%-1.5% of the invested amount. So, for a $10000 investment, your advisor is probably making around $150 as a one-time compensation, not $575. The higher the invested amount, the lower the advisor's compensation percentage.