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I know the meaning of buying. Today I was reading the newspaper and I read this sentence

But his fund is still buying gingerly because while the market may be cheaper, he said, it still isn’t cheap.

What is the meaning of the word buying in this context. How can a non living thing possibly buy something?

The link to that news article is

Newyork times Link

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  • An organisation can buy something. Of course the act of buying is done by the owner of the fund, or an employee.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Apr 4, 2020 at 7:55
  • Check your spelling of "I" (it uses a capital letter).
    – James K
    Commented Apr 4, 2020 at 8:01
  • @Micheal Harvey...organisation is composed of living entities. So it would be quite understandable. But how can funds buy something?
    – Sudhir Sharma
    Commented Apr 4, 2020 at 8:01
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    @Sudhir Sharma - A "fund" in this context is a kind of company set up to administer investments. It is understood by native or fluent speakers that when an organisation buys something, what is really meant is that an employee orders the purchase on behalf of the organisation, the purchase price is paid out of the organisation's bank account, and the purchased item belongs to the organisation. We say that a school bought some new desks and a blackboard, even though the head teacher wrote the order out, and signed the cheque on the school's behalf.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Apr 4, 2020 at 11:22

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The measure of things being able to ‘do’ actions grammatically correctly isn’t actually whether they’re living or not; it’s whether they have agency — whether they are capable of doing things and making decisions.

A ‘fund’ is when a group of people pool their money together to do something. In this case, they’ve pooled their money together to buy stocks. A fund does have agency; it can ‘do’ things through the agreement of its members. Thus, it can buy things; despite not actually being a living thing, it has agency.

Hope that helps!

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