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Topic
Index funds
7 guides in Finabase Learn
- How to build your first portfolio: a step-by-step beginner outline An eight-step educational outline for a first portfolio: foundations, goals, accounts, allocation, fund-selection criteria, costs, automation, rebalancing and behavior.
- Index investing: passive vs. active funds and what the data shows What index investing is, how index funds track a benchmark, what S&P’s SPIVA scorecards show about active managers, and how to read tracking error.
- John Bogle and index investing: the cost matters hypothesis How John Bogle founded Vanguard and the first retail index fund, why he argued costs decide returns, the arithmetic behind it and what his critics and successors say.
- Market concentration: what mega caps mean for S&P 500 investors How much of the S&P 500 its ten largest companies now make up, why cap-weighted indexes concentrate, and what it means for an index fund’s risk and diversification.
- Stock market indexes: S&P 500, Dow, Nasdaq and Russell explained How the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq-100 and Russell indexes are built and weighted, with worked examples and five years of index-ETF data.
- What is an ETF? How exchange-traded funds work How an exchange-traded fund is built, how authorized participants create and redeem shares, why price tracks NAV, and the main ETF types to know.
- Why most active funds underperform: costs, arithmetic and luck Why most actively managed stock funds trail their index over time: Sharpe’s arithmetic, costs, skewed stock returns, survivorship and luck.
Educational content, not investment advice. Finabase Learn explains how markets and tools work. It does not recommend any security or strategy, and examples are for illustration only. Investing involves risk, including the loss of principal. Rules and figures are for the United States unless stated and can change — check the cited source before you act.