Personal Finance & Money Stack Exchange
Personal Finance & Money Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [etf]

To be used for any questions relating to Exchange Traded Funds.

DEFINITION of 'Exchange-Traded Fund - ETF'

A security that tracks an index, a commodity or a basket of assets like an index fund, but trades like a stock on an exchange. ETFs experience price changes throughout the day as they are bought and sold.

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At what point do index funds become unreliable?

Passively investing in exchange-traded funds that track some broad index is often recommended for private investors that don't have the time or expertise for active investment. In particular, index funds are recommended over actively managed funds,…
henning no longer feeds AI
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Is this projected return from Wealthify too low?

I am really new to investing and I am so confused. Books, blogs and conferences suggest that investing is the way to multiply wealth. I do not have enough start up money to play with mutual funds, therefore I am looking at ETF funds to start. I…
kang
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Why do people claim that it's hard to outperform the S&P 500? It has only increased in value by ~1.5x in the past 5 years

Whereas companies like Google, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, Apple have all increased anywhere from 3x-6x in value in the past 5 years. If you just stuck with those companies, you would have easily beaten the S&P 500's 1.5x gains. Then there are some…
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What are the important differences between mutual funds and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)?

I've been considering, but haven't committed myself yet to investing in Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), but have to admit that I don't yet fully understand the use-case for them. What factors are relevant in making the decision between investing in…
JohnFx
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"Don't invest now because the market is high"

I have heard many people in my life say things like The market is low so it's a good time to invest or The market is high so don't invest It makes me wonder if mean-reversion is actually a thing for long-term passive investing. This…
Oliver Angelil
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Why would anyone ever invest in a cash-only etf?

I understand the benefits (and risks) of ETFs, and I also understand the benefits of a term deposit in a bank. I have seen that there are ETFs that essentially keep the investment in cash, that is, in term deposits, for example the iShares core…
Juan Antonio Gomez Moriano
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How much money do I need to retire?

Assume that I need $15,000 (USD) per year to cover all my costs including health insurance. How much money do I need to retire? The naive approach would be something like this: An ETF gives, on average, maybe something like 6%, so I would need…
simplemind
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Buying an US ETF from Europe using Interactive Brokers

I am trying to buy an ETF using my account in Interactive Brokers. I am surprised to see that it is not possible. I am living in Europe and trying to buy an ETF in US dollars. Their response to me: UK Retail clients are restricted from trading…
bp2010
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Why is the dominant investing advice for individuals to use mutual funds, exchanged traded funds (ETFs), etc

The dominant advice on this site (including that which I give to novices) regarding investing is to only invest in fund vehicles (mutual funds, ETFs, etc), rather than in individual stocks. Why is that? With all the successful investors (including…
warren
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What is the difference between these two S&P 500 ETF?

I wanted to invest in the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF which has the ISIN code US9229083632 However I just discovered it is not available in my country. As an alternative I am considering investing in Vanguard S&P 500 UCITS ETF which has the ISIN code…
Octoplus
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Why are daily rebalanced inverse/leveraged ETFs bad for long term investing?

I was reading this article about S&P 500 short ETFs: https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/176217/4-ways-to-short-the-sampp-500-with-etfs and I was confused when it said: "investors should note that such products are suitable only for short-term traders…
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Why don't SPY, SPX, and the e-mini s&p 500 track perfectly with each other?

These tickers (SPY, SPX, /ES) are all based off the S&P 500 yet the relative lows and highs diverge. Can someone provide a basic explanation what causes this to happen? I feel like it may stem from my having a basic lack of understanding on what…
Joey
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Why would a long-term investor ever chose a Mutual Fund over an ETF?

(I read this previous question but would like to differentiate my question by having it focus exclusively on long term, buy and hold investing). From my understanding, it is conventional wisdom that if a person wishes to invest in the stock market…
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What differentiates index funds and ETFs?

Many companies offer index funds and ETFs. If two funds or ETFs track the same fund, what differentiates the two? Is it common for one index fund to outperform another? How can this happen if the funds/ETFs are tracking the same index? I found this…
Ryan Michela
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How to know if two ETFs are 'substantially identical' according to wash sale rules?

Wash sale rules are pretty straight forward when you're trading stocks directly. However, how are these rules applied to ETFs? Right now I own shares of CMF and want to do some tax-harvesting on some of my short-term losses for 2016. I want to…
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