I've been thinking about doing this for awhile, and I was looking to invest something like $500/1000$... What are my options? Thank you very much for your answer in advance. It might not mean like much to you, but I sure appreciate it
I think it's generally a good idea for someone with a relatively long time horizon - especially if their funds are limited and they want to keep expenses down. Ipath, Ishares, SPDR, etc are good companies to look at for these types of things.
Ohh there are so many options. I would also recommend Ishares, they tend to have a very good selection of different funds and their fees are usually not too high. Just pay a lot of attention to the fees when choosing a fund... especially since we are talking about an index fund.
Index funds are always good investment options, regardless of whether you know about stock picking or not. Make sure you choose ones with good levels of liquidity and not too high expense ratios/fees.
This is an excellent question. I am looking to invest a very small amount of money as well. I would like to try my hand at Microsoft or something with a low price to buy.
Ishares was a killer tip! They have a Portuguese website! Not that I would have trouble reading English, but just it feels uncomplicated. Basically I need to pick one of their ETF's, get a discount broker, and tell them to buy $500 worth of iShares Core S&P 500 ETF for example, right? They clearly state that my investment may go up and down, and that I might in fact loose all of my investment. So I understand that it's still up to me to check what companies are part of each ETF. I can sell my ETF's at any time, right? There's nothing like a minimum time period of holding them, correct? And in the end, my expenses will be the buy itself, a broker's fee for buying, one for selling, and some kind of fee for the period of time I hold the ETF's, right? Thank you very much for your help guys! I really appreciate it!
You need a broker who offers IShares products. Now I'd imagine most dedicated brokers have them, but if you want to invest for example through your bank they might offer their own alternatives. (with much higher fees... obviously) But if it's Ishares that you want, make sure your broker offers access to them. And yes, then you just contact your broker (nowadays almost exclusively online. Though you can call too if you want) and make the order. Yes you can sell them at any time. As for the fees. The buy itself, the commission for the broker (can vary widely from $1 per transaction to $10+ per transaction) and the ETF's fee, which is taken from the value of the ETF itself... so they won't actually take any money from your account for this. Your broker can also charge you a yearly or monthly fee for upkeep of the brokerage account.
Excellent topic. I've been looking myself to invest in an Index Fund and this is a great topic. Ishares looks the best bet for the moment !
When you guys mention the fees, or you referring to the commission fees that you would pay your broker? Let's say I bought a Index Fund from an online brokerage, and even paying the commission fee, would I have to continue to pay fees to the fund? Monthly, quarterly, or yearly??
