What is the difference between ETF and index fund which is better?
Both are used in passive investing strategies. The biggest difference between them is that ETFs trade intraday at various prices during exchange hours and index mutual funds can be bought or sold only after the market closes each day, at a fund's net asset value.
There are typically no shareholder transaction costs for mutual funds. Costs such as taxation and management fees, however, are lower for ETFs. 2 Most passive retail investors choose index mutual funds over ETFs based on cost comparisons between the two. Passive institutional investors tend to prefer ETFs.
Both VFIAX, a mutual fund, and SPY, an ETF, seek to track the S&P 500. The SPY ETF may have a slight tax advantage over the VFIAX mutual fund since it's not actively managed, meaning there's less buying and selling of trades. VFIAX and SPY are generally considered strong investments, especially for passive investors.
If you're investing in a taxable brokerage account, you may be able to squeeze out a bit more tax efficiency from an ETF than an index fund. However, index funds are still very tax-efficient, so the difference is negligible. Don't sell an index fund just to buy the equivalent ETF.
For instance, some ETFs may come with fees, others might stray from the value of the underlying asset, ETFs are not always optimized for taxes, and of course — like any investment — ETFs also come with risk.
Tax strategy
If you buy and sell frequently, ETFs are the clear winner when it comes to taxes. When shares of an ETF are sold, only the seller pays capital gains taxes. That's different from index mutual funds because you sell these shares to a fund manager.
You may be able to find an index mutual fund with lower costs than a comparable ETF. Similar ETFs are thinly traded. As we covered earlier, infrequently traded ETFs could have wide bid/ask spreads, meaning the cost of trading shares of the ETF could be high.
Fund 10-year annualized return: 12.82%. Index 10-year annualized return: 12.71%.
For beginners, the vast array of index funds options can be overwhelming. We recommend Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) (minimum investment: $1; expense Ratio: 0.03%); Invesco QQQ ETF (QQQ) (minimum investment: NA; expense Ratio: 0.2%); and SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA).
S&P 500 5 Year Return is at 85.38%, compared to 83.02% last month and 55.60% last year. This is higher than the long term average of 45.20%.
How long should you hold an ETF?
Holding an ETF for longer than a year may get you a more favorable capital gains tax rate when you sell your investment.
One common strategy is to close out positions that have losses before their one-year anniversary. You then keep positions that have gains for more than one year. This way, your gains receive long-term capital gains treatment, lowering your tax liability.
What are the tax implications of an index fund if you don't sell it, but just reinvest dividends every quarter/year? If the fund is held in a taxable account, the dividends and possibly some distributed capital gains are reported as taxable income each year even if they are reinvested and nothing is withdrawn.
An ETF with a low risk rating can still lose money. ETFs do not provide any guarantees of future performance. As with any investment, you might not get back the money you invested.
Leveraged ETF prices tend to decay over time, and triple leverage will tend to decay at a faster rate than 2x leverage. As a result, they can tend toward zero.
| Symbol | Name | 5-Year Return |
|---|---|---|
| SPYG | SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 Growth ETF | 14.43% |
| VOOG | Vanguard S&P 500 Growth ETF | 14.38% |
| IWL | iShares Russell Top 200 ETF | 14.36% |
| LRGE | ClearBridge Large Cap Growth ESG ETF | 14.29% |
If you're new to investing, you can absolutely start off by buying index funds alone as you learn more about how to choose the right stocks. But as your knowledge grows, you may want to branch out and add different companies to your portfolio that you feel align well with your personal risk tolerance and goals.
- Nippon India ETF Nifty 50 BeES. ₹ 241.63.
- Nippon India ETF PSU Bank BeES. ₹ 76.03.
- BHARAT 22 ETF. ₹ 96.10.
- Mirae Asset NYSE FANG+ ETF. ₹ 84.5.
- UTI S&P BSE Sensex ETF. ₹ 781.
- Nippon India ETF Gold BeES. ₹ 55.5.
- Nippon India Etf Nifty Bank Bees. ₹ 471.9.
- HDFC Nifty50 Value 20 ETF. ₹ 123.2.
Index funds often perform better than actively managed funds over the long-term. Index funds are less expensive than actively managed funds. Index funds typically carry less risk than individual stocks.
Buffett's thinking here is straightforward. Most non-professional investors (and even many professional stock-pickers) have very little chance of outperforming the market. But index fund investors get exposure to the entire U.S. market and can benefit from its historical upward trajectory — and for cheap.
Is VOO or VTI better?
However, if you know that you'd like a bit more exposure to smaller and medium-sized companies or just want to invest in more stocks overall, VTI is your best bet. VOO, meanwhile, is the better option for investors who want to focus heavily on large cap companies.
Are there dividend-paying index funds? Yes, there are several dividend-paying index funds for investors who prioritize steady income over high growth.
According to Standard and Poor's, the average annualized return of the S&P index, which later became the S&P 500, from 1926 to 2020 was 10%. 1 At 10%, you could double your initial investment every seven years (72 divided by 10).
In 1980, had you invested a mere $1,000 in what went on to become the top-performing stock of S&P 500, then you would be sitting on a cool $1.2 million today.
Ideally, you should stay invested in equity index funds for the long run, i.e., at least 7 years. That is because investing in any equity instrument for the short-term is fraught with risks. And as we saw, the chances of getting positive returns improve when you give time to your investments.
