What exactly is an Index fund?

I am 19 years old and looking to invest some of my income into stocks and/or a roth IRA. Can you guys explain what an index fund is? From my practice it is when a mutual fund disperses your investment into several companies, but I'm not sure. So what is an index fund, where do I find one. Do sites similar to E Trade and Scottrade have them? And any more guidance would be appreciated!!


Answers:    An Index fund is a fund that tracks one of the major stock indexes. the most popular index to track is the Standard and Poors 500, the 500 biggest companies on the NYSE. Other indexes are the Dow Industrial, 30 companies, and the Russel 5000 which tracks 5000 companies. These indexes move unbelievably much in tandem.

Index funds are import tax efficient because the solely time they buy or sell is when companies are added and removed from the index, so in attendance is not capital gain to be paid ever year as near many mutual funds. If you are surrounded by an IRA tax value isn't an issue.

I would suggest either Vanguard or T. Rowe Price they hold no commission and very low annual expenses.
An Index Fund is sort of close to a mutual fund with its focus on companies stocks for a specific sector or industry.

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Thanks for asking your Q! I enjoyed answering it!

VTY,
Ron Berue
Yes, specifically my real later name!
It is a mutual fund. There are over 550 different ones you can choose from. Some are sold similar to stocks. Any of those can be bought from E trade or Scottrade or any other broker.

What separates an index fund from a classic mutual fund is that they are psudo managed. By that I anticipate that the manager does not prefer what to buy and sell contained by the fund. Instead it is based on an index such as the S&P 500 or some other index and the folks that manufacture up the index are the ones that determine which stocks are bought and sold. Generally, and index fund since it is not managed have lower expenses than a managed fund sometime significantly lower which tend to make it attractive and also eliminate the possibility of having a poor principal picking lousy stocks. It also has one other significant profit but which will mean nil in an IRA explanation. Since it is only marginally manage, there will be markedly little if any year end realize captial gains to hold to pay taxes on.

Here is a relation to most of the index funds that are traded like stocks.

http://www.etfconnect.com/select/rank/de...


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