News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley. Parent comment

Re:If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon V... by rightbyte on Monday November 19, 2018 @04:21PM (#18489852)
A index fund doesn't follow the index. There is a broker fee, stock transaction fees for the broker to keep the fund balanced and stock falling out of the index (because of the company eg. halfway to bankruptcy) is a loss for the fund but in the index the next biggest stock just takes it's place.

To keep up with the index is probably really hard.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon V... by RussianCow on Monday November 19, 2018 @05:41PM (#18490393)
The iShares S&P 500 ETF (quote: IVV) has an expense ratio of 0.04%, is offered commission-free on many brokerages, and based on some quick calculations, follows the official index to within about 0.5% returns. You're right that it's not completely "free", but the total "cost" is only about half a percentage point, meaning you can pretty closely follow the index in the long run with a single ETF purchase. I don't know what could be easier. :)
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon V... by clairity on Monday November 19, 2018 @04:33PM (#18489933)
it's not that hard (and there is no "the index", just various approximations of a market portfolio). vanguard is well known for low-fee, no-frills index investing (among other things). invest in one of their funds and you'll likely net over 5% over the long run.
[ Parent | on HN ]