For example, you can buy an index fund based on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (S&P 500) of top American companies as either a mutual fund or an ETF. Or you could buy a portfolio of bonds with ...

One common example is a mutual fund. Investment funds take the contributions of fund investors and purchase a portfolio that may include stocks, bonds, short-term debt or a combination of assets.

An index fund is a mutual fund or ETF composed to match the composition of a benchmark stock index and mirror its performance. For example, The Vanguard Russel 2000 ETF is composed of the same ...

"For example, the Vanguard 500 Index Fund is available in both ETF (ticker: VOO) and mutual fund (VFIAX) form," says Rodney Comegys, global head of Vanguard's equity indexing group. "Both offer ...

An example is the Fidelity 500 Index Fund, which is the third-largest U.S. mutual fund in terms of net assets. There are more than 2,100 Fidelity funds specializing in U.S. equities, plus hundreds ...

A good place to start your search for top index exchange-traded funds and mutual funds is with the Morningstar Medalist Rating. Funds that earn our highest rating—Gold—are those that we think ...

A sales load is a fee (charged as a percentage of their invested balance) that an investor pays to their broker when they purchase or redeem shares of a mutual fund. When an investor purchases or ...

Mutual funds are required by law to make capital ... can stray further away from the true value of the underlying holdings. For example, if an investor bought an ETF that was trading at a premium ...