Reviewed by Gordon Scott Fact checked by Betsy Petrick Key Takeaways Mutual funds are pooled investments managed by a fund management professional.Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) represent baskets of ...

Index funds are mutual funds that seek only to mirror the performance of an underlying stock market index — not to outperform ...

Take a Financial Advisor Quiz. Index funds are one of the most popular investment vehicles of the 21st century. Pioneered by the late John “Jack” Bogle, founder of Vanguard, index funds have risen to ...

Buying shares of a fund rather than individual stocks makes it easier to invest. Funds offer instant portfolio diversification with very little work. You don't have to stay informed on dozens of ...

Comparing index funds can help you align your investment goals, risk profile and financial strategy. Key aspects to consider include the cost of managing the fund, how closely it follows its benchmark ...

"Index funds can help investors achieve long-term success through their low costs, broad diversification, low turnover and ...

S&P 500 index funds like VFIAX and SWPPX can be an easy and inexpensive way to round out most investment portfolios. Many, or all, of the products featured on this page are from our advertising ...

Feeling lazy about your investments? There’s a solution for that, and Fidelity index funds can help. So-called “lazy investing” involves building a portfolio you can hold long term with limited ...

John Bogle founded Vanguard Group and created the first index mutual fund. Bogle's investing philosophy stressed low costs, market-wide exposure, and long-term investment. His methods highly ...

This column continues the theme of last week’s article, “The Best US Stock Index Funds.” (You probably figured that from the headline.) Once again, the goal is to identify the leading equity index ...