Best Index Funds - Finding Your Favorite Choice
When it comes to finding best index funds, there is not a lot of things to compare about. They differ by fund's expenses and level of service provided.
Index funds are definitely one of the most effective and popular ways of investing money to achieve long term saving goals. The reason is in their low cost structure. As the name suggests, Index funds track underlying index. As such, index funds are not really actively managed like most of classic mutual funds and thus provide you important management fee savings, which lower your long-term yield potential otherwise. One would ask, if there is no active management involved in index funds, aren't they all the same? The answer is no, they aren't. There are some minor differences in fund's expenses and level of service they provide to investors.
Further we provide you a list of top 3 best index funds families.
Vanguard Index Funds
Vanguard is a pioneer when it comes to index fund investing. They launched the very first index fund back in 1976, which was named Vanguard 500 Index Fund. Believe it or not, but this same fund is still among leaders in index funds industry. Vanguard as a company is providing their investors low cost investment opportunities. As they love to say, you as investors are not able to control the return, but you sure can control your costs. Today, you can choose among over hundred index funds via Vanguard, including umbrella index funds and index funds with specific retirement strategy implemented; both types of funds allow you to diversify your portfolio with single investment). We are 100% sure you will find sufficient investment products that will meet your saving goals with Vanguard.
iShares Index Funds
iShares funds are also among best index funds, undoubtedly. As you might know, index funds might be sold to you in two different forms, as mutual fund or Exchange Traded Fund. There is some legal difference behind it, but from investor's point of view the most important difference is that ETF's are traded on the stock exchange like normal stocks, while mutual funds don't. iShares is one of the biggest ETFs issuer in the world, they also provide you a great educational database and tools, which will help you find the best index fund for your own needs. You can choose among single country ETFs, regional markets ETFs, sector ETFs, and several other options, including real estates and commodities.
Charles Schwab Index Funds
Charles Schwab is more classic mutual fund provider, since they have a number of professional analytics, who are able to successfully manage funds on their own. However, they also passively manage some index funds and they sure do it for very low costs. For example, their S&P500 Index Fund has a management fee of only 0.09% per year, which is well below the industry average. You might want to check their index funds, especially if you are very much cost oriented.
Written by: Goran Dolenc
Do you find this content useful? Like! Tweet! Recommend! Share!
Back from Best Index Funds to Best Mutual Fund
Back from Best Index Funds to Best Online Trading Site for Beginners home page