Fund picks and pans stocks

waldguy says:

An ETF is an index fund as it holds a basket of stocks reflecting a particular index or sector. It can be bought or sold at any time during the day on the open market, and typically charges a fairly low amount for the management. Typically you might buy shares in an ETF, and 100 is the round lot multiple which is most easily traded, although many ETFs trade enough shares that you can get lower multiples traded as well. (eg. 83 shares at $12 for about $996). You’ll pay a commission for each transaction, the amount varying with the brokerage you do business with.

If you’re referring to index fund as a mutual fund which tracks an index, it its price is typically set at the end of the day, and can only be sold or bought at the end of day price. Depending on the company that manages this fund, the expense for doing so are typically higher than that of ETFs. The advantage of a mutual fund is that you may just decide to put, say $1000 into it and they’ll divide up the number of shares that represents and you’d get the exact amount. The expenses are hidden and subtracted from the returns the fund generates (as with the ETF).

Michael G says:

An index fund or index tracker is a collective investment scheme (usually a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund) that aims to replicate the movements of an index of a specific financial market, or a set of rules of ownership that are held constant, regardless of market conditions.

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An exchange-traded fund (or ETF) is an investment vehicle traded on stock exchanges, much like stocks. An ETF holds assets such as stocks or bonds and trades at approximately the same price as the net asset value of its underlying assets over the course of the trading day. Most ETFs track an index, such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average or the S&P 500. ETFs may be attractive as investments because of their low costs, tax efficiency, and stock-like features.