Sunday, June 22, 2008

Mutual Funds - Index Funds for High Returns and Low Fees

By M. L. Williams

Mutual funds have been around for a long time - since the early 1970's they have increased in popularity with each year - billions and billions of dollars are now invested in mutual funds, making them one the most popular investment vehicles.

A Popular Type of Mutual Fund - Index Funds

There are several different kinds of mutual funds, but a good one to consider is index funds. Index funds are a very common investment because of their usefulness.

Index Funds for Low Fees

Index mutual funds are a kind of mutual funds that select a wide variety of stocks and securities with the goal of matching the returns of a well-known stock market index. Some mutual funds are intended to match the Standard and Poors 500, while others are to match the return, which is the up and down of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Some of the index funds advantages

There are several advantages to owning index funds, and I'll elaborate about two of them here. The first advantage of index funds is that the average expenses are comparatively lower since they do not need active management.

The term "active management" means that a person who is in charge of buying and selling stock for a fund is actively involved. A fund is frequently bought and sold under the direction of the manager, which generates costs to go with such transactions.

And, active management requires that a fund manager be hired who is an expert in stock picking and trading. Such a manager, of course, requires a salary commensurate with the manager's ability. Index funds, by contrast, require no active management. The stocks are chosen, often by a computer program, to match the return of the index with the least possible trading and virtually no discretion necessary on the part of the fund's management.

Another advantage of index funds is related to previous one. If you choose an index fund, you can know that your fund will not be among majority of managed funds that regularly under perform the stock market as a whole.

So you get the advantage of lower overall fees charged by the mutual fund investment company, and the advantage of having your investment perform just about as well as the market index which it tracks. Next time you are shopping for an investment vehicle, give index mutual funds some thought.

About the Author:

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home