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Posts Tagged ‘index fund’

Do S&P index funds only go up?

October 17th, 2010

We have 23-24K in an AXA Equitable Tax Sheltered Annuity. It was established while my wife was a teacher. I have heard that AXA is rather fee orientated. In a short while the funds will be clear of any early withdraw penalties. We met with an investment counselor and he said we could invest in an S&P 500 index fund for 3, 5 or 6 years and our funds would have the potential to grow significantly. He also stated that our earnings would never go down. He stated that he would get paid, the investment company would make money and we could do as well as 12 or 14 percent. Is this correct!?!

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Technorati Tags: 24k, 6 years, amp, axa, axa equitable, earnings, index fund, investment company, investment counselor, money, orientated, tax sheltered annuity

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Tags: 24k, 6 years, amp, axa, axa equitable, earnings, index fund, investment company, investment counselor, money, orientated, tax sheltered annuity |

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clarification on index funds?

October 5th, 2010

I’m 19 years old and trying to plan for my future. I’ve been trying to do research on things to invest in and originally i went into this looking into buying a mutual fund. most of the information i found said that mutual funds arent the way to go but index funds are where its at. Ive been looking into this "VTSMX" fund but I just don’t understand how i’ll really make money with it long term. I just don’t understand how its a good long term investment. The stock market goes up 2 out of every 3 years i read somewhere but it seems like like it takes 2 years to recover from how long it got at one point. so how do I make money on an index fund when it just platues. As far as the fund is concerned it went to 35$ at one point and then came back down to 14 and then continued to rise to 38 again. I guess I just don’t quite understand and have alot more learning to go. any insight would be wonderful

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Technorati Tags: 19 years, 3 years, how do i make money, index fund, index funds, insight, long term investment, mutual fund, mutual funds, quot, stock market

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Tags: 19 years, 3 years, how do i make money, index fund, index funds, insight, long term investment, mutual fund, mutual funds, quot, stock market |

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What index funds should I invest in? (I have Fidelity)?

October 4th, 2010

Okay, I keep reading that the best, safest way to invest is to buy Index funds. I have looked into these and most of these have minimums at least 2500, 10k, or even 100k. If I have 20k to invest and I want to have a diversified portfolio, how should I invest this 20k into the index funds?

I currently have an extra 1500 that i invest in individual stocks.

What is the difference between a mutual fund vs index fund?

Any input will be greatly thankful. Thanks and have a great day!

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Technorati Tags: diversified portfolio, index fund, index funds, mutual fund, stocks

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I invest in 5 different index funds for my ROTH IRA. Do you think this mixture is good?

October 1st, 2010

I invest in 5 index funds through Vanguard but am always second guessing myself. I plan on holding these funds long term. I am currently 39 years old. The five funds are 1) Emerging Markets Index Fund 2) Total International Index Fund 3) 500 Index Fund 4) Large Cap Value Fund 5) Small Cap Index Fund.

What do you think? As you see above, I try to keep each fund at about 20% of the total value. So as you see, that means 40% is in international. 60% is in US index funds. Is this a good mixture?

Please help!!

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Technorati Tags: cap index, cap value, emerging markets, index fund, index funds, international index, large cap value fund, markets index, mixture, small cap, total value, vanguard

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Tags: cap index, cap value, emerging markets, index fund, index funds, international index, large cap value fund, markets index, mixture, small cap, total value, vanguard |

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Mutual funds transferred to an Index fund?

September 29th, 2010

Hey, certainly not the right place to ask important financial questions but did need some quick clarification…

Listening to NPR today and one of the top performing investor’s overall recommendation was that basically, a basic index fund will, on average, out perform any Mutual fund. And, because Index funds have less fees associated with them, the investor really will make out far better in the long run. His advice was, of course, not to pull your money out of your investment account but to perhaps transfer it to an Index Fund.

Since this was really limited information, my question was really about how the mutual fund works. I’ve lost, say, 30k in the 3 different mutual funds I have now. Shouldn’t I just leave the money in (since it’s already a loss) and hope the value goes up in the next 10 years? Or, within the mutual fund are the stocks constantly trading so the stock my mutual fund holds now, will not be the same stock in it 10 years from now. If the later is the case, I can see why moving it to an index fund makes sense. But if investors usually keep the same core stocks, then isn’t transferring my money to an Index fund the same as pulling out of the market? Does this make sense?

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Technorati Tags: 10 years, clarification, financial questions, index fund, index funds, investment account, investor, investors, money, mutual fund, mutual funds, stock, stocks

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Tags: 10 years, clarification, financial questions, index fund, index funds, investment account, investor, investors, money, mutual fund, mutual funds, stock, stocks |

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Index funds cannot go to zero ?

September 27th, 2010

Index funds cannot go to zero ? Am I right ? e.g. take the S&P 500 ETF index for SPY.

There are 500 stocks in SPY. Should one stock declares bankruptcy or gets de-listed, it is removed from the index fund SPY and a new stock will be added.

So I think even in a bearish market, the price value of SPY or any index funds including Dow Jones, Hengseng, Nekki, etc will never have a price value of zero.

Should any stock(s) in anyone of these index funds goes belly up, the stock(s) just gets removed or de-listed from the index and a new stock will be added.

Am I right ? Or am I missing anything ?

Even if we have the worst case scenario similar or more devastating than the 1929 market crash, the price of any Index Funds cannot go
to zero value.

Please comment and give me your insight.

Thanks in advance

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Technorati Tags: amp, bankruptcy, bearish market, dow jones, etf, fund spy, hengseng, index fund, index funds, insight, market crash, nekki, stock, stocks, thanks in advance, worst case scenario

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Which no-load index fund is the best to start with?

September 24th, 2010

I am 22 years old and recently put in 0 into a ROTH Ira through TD Ameritrade. Do I even have the minimum balance to begin ivnesting in any of these index funds? I only know of Vanguard’s 500 index fund as well as Fidelity Spartan.

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It seems that index mutual fund returns should roughly be equal to the index return minus fees?

September 20th, 2010

Is that statement true?

Also, it seems like the fee % for an index fund (e.g. S&P 500 fund) would roughly equal to the funds alpha. Is that true?

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cdn index funds search?

September 18th, 2010

Does anyone know a good source for canadian index funds? I’m in search of a good index fund to invest in but would like to be able to compare, or at least get some stats. My research so far tells me index funds have out performed the majority of Canadian equity mutual funds. If this is so then I sure would like to diversify my portfolio. Thanks!

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Are Target Retirement Funds index funds?

September 17th, 2010

please don’t get mad at this question

I want to do a Roth IRA at Vanguard with a Target Retirment and a Total Stock Market Fund. I was told the index fund is the way to go for me…..am i getting it with the TSM fund?