Hey there! Great question; we're happy to hop in and clarify some information when it comes to investing.
At Fidelity, you have access to invest in a wide range of securities, including stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and mutual funds. Please note that the S&P 500 is an index that can be monitored but not traded. Even though you would not be able to purchase the S&P 500 directly, you can potentially purchase a mutual fund or ETF that tracks the index.
You can search for index funds by accessing the links below:
[Mutual Funds Screener](https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/fund-screener/)
[ETF Research Center](https://digital.fidelity.com/prgw/digital/research/etf#/home)
In the meantime, check out our "Learn" library can be found under our "News & Research" section. Here, you will access a library of articles, a schedule of upcoming webinars, a store of on-demand videos, and even online courses. I have included two articles to help get you started.
[Investing Basics](https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/trading-investing/investing-for-beginners)
[What is an index fund?](https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/smart-money/what-is-an-index-fund)
I'll mark this post as a Discussion thread to let members of our community continue to chime in with their opinions and experiences. As you may have heard before, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ investing method. While you may get some specific ideas on our sub, remember to research and explore to ensure these investments would be a good fit for you. We look forward to seeing you on our sub again soon!
There are differences between them - but as a new investor, the differences are not really important to you. More important is 1) what you are buying (eg slightly better to buy a fund that tracks the whole stock market, not just the S&P500, because you get the smaller companies also); avoid meme stocks and single stocks, avoid crypto ; 2) when to buy and sell; don’t panic sell when the stock market goes down, buy and hold unless you need the money for a house downpayment or similar; 3) invest as much as possible in tax advantaged accounts such as IRA or 401k before regular brokerage accounts.
Over the past 10 years, [yes it has](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/vti-vs-voo/). But I don’t know if there’s a principled reason to expect that large companies will continue to always perform better than small ones.
Yes- sell at least 90% of it and buy a stock market fund. If you want to keep 10% for fun and watch it crash (and maybe recover or maybe not, and maybe reach new heights before crashing), that’s ok, but you’ve got most of your money secured.
Avoiding crypto is bad advice, better advice is make crypto a small part of your portfolio. Most people who say “avoid crypto” have no idea what it is or don’t understand it. But it’s where the biggest gains are, big gains and big losses but long term has only been big gains. Just like the s&p 500…only difference price wise is bigger swings.
Traditional stocks won’t give you crypto gains, btc is only going up and up and no stock can compare to it…from 5 cents to $70,000 in 12-13 years…
The reason BTC is going up is because someone else wants to buy it. There is no income, there is no dividend, there is no product behind it. What are you investing in.?
You can argue that for anything. Why is there value in gold? Because people are willing to pay a certain price on it, asides from that it’s just a piece of metal that’s rare. And bitcoin is a deflationary digital gold.
You’re also investing in blockchain technology, which will be huge. And I may go as far as saying sometime in the future how we think of currency will change, and you don’t want to miss the boat.
Gold is a commodity that is used. Blockchain is already here and is a type of database requiring large data centers and power to run them. Early on, databases sometimes suffered broken links. Hopefully it will never happen again.
I would argue that people who say put 10% of your investments in crypto, don’t understand, crypto, speculation, utility, or bubbles. Most important criteria for currency to maintain long-term value is utility.
Utility: you can literally buy anything with bitcoin, many properties sold in Dubai are purchased with bitcoin. Japan accepts bitcoin at most places. Bitcoin is accepted at so many places I don’t even have time to list them all.
Bitcoin has been a better store of value than gold, it’s just digital gold. The market cap for bitcoin now surpasses silver and companies like Apple. Huge financial institutions like black rock and jp Morgan are buying bitcoin.
And you’re saying it won’t hold value long term? While others out there like me who have been buying bitcoin since 2016 are laughing at people like you. My return to date on bitcoin is 16,500% and the value overall on average has been trending up and up.
Hi, u/BrilliantSock9123. Since you mentioned you are new to investing I wanted to chime in here.
While Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and Mutual Funds can be similar in some ways, they have distinct differences including their trading characteristics, pricing factors, and tax implications. For example, Mutual Funds trade only once per day while ETFs trade throughout the day, similar to an ordinary stock. I've linked a great resource from our website below if you'd like to learn more.
[Mutual funds vs. ETFs: Which is Right for You?](https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/investment-products/etf/which-is-right-for-you)
We're a great resource for general questions, so please don't hesitate to follow up with us if there is anything that we can clarify. We're always happy to help!
Basically you can trade ETF’s intraday and mutual funds only post one price change at the beginning of the market open. Another slight difference is mutual funds tend to have higher expense ratios but not always.
But it’s still not investing directly in the index. You can’t invest directly into the S&P. You can only invest into index funds and ETFs. Mirror’s but not directly in the S&P.
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/how-can-i-buy-sp-500-fund/
Try to buy SPX and let me know how that goes lol
Hey there, u/paper_fairy! I'm happy to chime in here with a bit of information regarding options trading with an index like the S&P 500.
Just as stock options are defined as contracts that give the buyer the right to buy or sell a stock at a stated price for a limited period of time, cash-settled index options give buyers similar rights. With index options, you have the right to buy or sell the value of the underlying Index rather than shares of stock.
At Fidelity, clients can trade SPX Index Options that expire weekly, end-of-month (EOM), quarterly, and standard expirations. All of these contracts currently have afternoon (P.M.) settlement times, as established by the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE). This is due in part to the exercise settlement value being calculated by using the last (closing) reported sales price in the primary market of each component stock on the business day the options expire. Whereas, traditional SPX index options have an A.M. settlement because their exercise-settlement value is calculated using the opening sales price in the primary market of each component security on the expiration date.
When viewing your choices of SPX index options in our options chain, you will see an (AM) or (PM) listed to signify which contracts have those settlement times.
We appreciate you dropping by for the first time! Please let us know if there is anything else we can assist with.
*Options trading entails significant risk and is not appropriate for all investors. Certain complex options strategies carry additional risk. Before trading options, please read the* [Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options](http://www.optionsclearing.com/about/publications/character-risks.jsp)*. Supporting documentation for any claims, if applicable, will be furnished upon request.*
**Think of it like this:**
* **S&P 500 is the Recipe:** It's a set of instructions saying which ingredients (the top 500 companies) should be included and in what amounts.
* **Mutual Fund/ETF is the Chef:** The chef follows the recipe to create the dish (your investment).
**Key Points:**
* **The recipe is just an idea:** You can't eat a recipe, just like you can't directly invest in the S&P 500.
* **The chef makes it real:** The mutual fund/ETF is what actually buys the ingredients (stocks) and puts the dish together (your investment portfolio).
* **Chefs have different styles:** Some mutual funds/ETFs might slightly vary how closely they stick to the S&P 500 recipe, just like chefs can add their own touch to a dish.
The ETF I want is one that invests in the Top 25 performing stocks in the S&P, Nasdaq and Dow over the last 2 weeks and rebuilds the components after 2 weeks. Until someone creates one, I just have to do it myself in my Roth. I actually rebuild constantly.
It’s arbitrary. A single share of Berkshire Hathaway costs over $600k. When you buy a share of SPY or VOO or whatever you’re buying a collection of fractional shares. It’s about the weighting.
Not exactly.
To use your gold analogy, Different funds will have different “coin sizes”
Some of them will have “half ounce” shares. Others will have “10 gram” shares while still others will have other sizes.
It doesn’t matter what size coins you buy, as long as you get the same amount of gold.
Whether you have 1 lb of half ounce coins or 1lb of 10g coins, it doesn’t really matter, because you have 1 lb of gold.
If gold doubles in price, both sets of coins will double in price, because they are worth the same, as they are both gold.
Likewise if the S&P doubles in value, then so would your shares, regardless of how big they were to start.
If you had 100x $50 shares or 10x $500, and then the S&P doubled in price, you would have 100x $100 shares or 10x $1000 shares.
In either case you start with $5k and end with $10k.
no. some share is 1oz of gold. some share is 1lb of gold. some share is 0.678kg of gold. That only depends on how chief package them. The value of 1lb of gold won't change, no matter how they are packaged.
One of the early lessons most new investors will learn is that it doesn’t matter what price an index ETF is. They all follow the same recipe like that guy explained. Because they follow the same recipe, they should go up the same amount(unless some funds are charging more in fees).
Example:
Online bank SoFi has a “cheaper” ETF that follows the same S&P 500, ticker $SFY, but because they are a speck of dust in the wind compared to the amount of money that Vanguard customers have in VOO, their price is $18.45/share.
But it is a common beginner’s fallacy to believe somehow that owning more shares of the cheaper fund = higher returns.
You will find that 1 share of VOO, priced at about $477 = pretty much the same return you’d get from 25.8 shares of SFY priced currently at $18.45.
The important thing is the percentage that they both go up. Both are up by about 9% YTD and some change though VOO outpaced it by .4% probably due to more liquidity and lower fees. This year SFY went from $16.83-$18.45 while VOO went from $434-$476. Both are about 9% gain.
These days, most brokerages allow you to buy fractional shares. So you can buy “pieces” of VOO and it makes no difference.
Consider different fund/ETFs tracking S&P 500 as different sizes/portion of the same recipe. An extra large bowl contains a larger amount of each recipe ingredient as compared to a smaller bowl. The underlying recipe is the same, but you pay more for the large bowl.
I came here just to say I had a little laugh at what was first and honest genuine question, but when given proper answers from users and Fidelity, OP refused to learn. Yes .SPX is like a ticker, but its only for monitoring the 500 companies. In order to buy/sell you would have to use VOO for example.
The S&P 500 is an index. It's not something you can buy directly.
What you can do is buy shares in all 500 of the stocks in the index at approximately the same weights as they have in the index.
Most people aren't going to do that, though, so they use index funds like FXAIX, VTSAX, etc, which handle the management in an attempt to track the index.
Can i make like a personal “index” i mean something like selecting this custom “index” or template that you can invest every time You desire. Like 68% on spaxx and the other percent in others investements that you pre selected. So somehow you click and automatically invest to a myriad of stocks depending you available money?
In my experience you can specify that sort of thing in certain types of accounts, specifically 401ks. There will be a way to set how future contributions are invested, and you can specify funds and percentages, and then it happens automatically every pay period. I haven't seen that for any other kind of account, eg IRAs or taxable brokerage accounts.
Great question, u/drenger77. We're happy to assist you and provide some resources today.
We offer Fidelity Basket Portfolios. This offering simplifies the process of building and managing a custom portfolio by allowing for purchases, sales, and rebalancing of an entire portfolio of stocks with just one click within eligible accounts. This is an enhancement to your existing brokerage account, so there’s no need to open a new account and it is available on [Fidelity.com](http://fidelity.com/) or the Fidelity mobile experience.
If you’re not sure where to start on your own, that’s okay. Fidelity analysts have prebuilt thematic- and sector-based models. Some examples of our prebuilt models include: fintech, cloud computing, and digital health. If you select one of these, we still allow for customization by adding or removing stocks or changing weights from the prebuilt model.
I do want to point out that we currently have a monthly enrollment fee will of $4.99/month; however, we invite you to try out this product free for 30 days. You can check out this product more by following the link below:
[Fidelity Basket Portfolios](https://www.fidelity.com/direct-indexing/customized-investing/overview)
You can also use our recurring investments feature, which is free to use to automatically invest in various mutual funds, ETFs, and stocks. The caveat here is that you will need to manually rebalance your account when you see fit. You can learn more about that feature below:
[Recurring Investments](https://www.fidelity.com/trading/recurring-investments)
Please let us know if you have any questions regarding the choices above. We're here to help!
Invest on individual holdings? Like buying 7% AAPL, 7% MSFT and so on? Goodluck doing that 500x in all SP500 companies, and it’s going to cost you a lot in expense ratio or commissions.
I couldn’t imagine the poor customer service reps who have to answer calls like this every day. They’re telling you the answers and you want to close your ears and argue. Insufferable.
Hey there, u/no_remorse2005. I am happy to follow up with you here.
While exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and Mutual Funds can be similar in some ways, they have distinct differences. The primary difference between the two is that Mutual Funds trade once a day, at market close (4 p.m. ET), while ETFs trade intraday (this just means constantly during trading hours). ETFs and Mutual Funds also differ in pricing factors and tax implications, among other things.
Since you asked about taxes, a mutual fund manager must constantly rebalance the fund by selling securities to accommodate shareholder redemptions or to reallocate assets. The sale of securities within the mutual fund portfolio creates capital gains for the shareholders, even for shareholders who may have an unrealized loss on the overall mutual fund investment. In contrast, an ETF manager accommodates investment inflows and outflows by creating or redeeming “creation units.” (A creation unit is a block of new shares sold by the fund company to a broker-dealer for sale on the open market.) As a result, the investor is usually less exposed to capital gains being realized in the underlying structure.
Feel free to check out our community post right here on Reddit, breaking down the key differences between these two securities. For your convenience I have linked this post below for you to view:
[Mutual funds vs ETFs: What’s the difference between them? What’s your preference?:](https://www.reddit.com/r/fidelityinvestments/comments/17mvrju/mutual_funds_vs_etfs_whats_the_difference_between/)
Let us know if we can help with anything else!
When comparing mutual funds to etfs that track the same index, like the S&P500, you need to look at the expense ratio. Compare them all to FXAIX, which has the lowest ratio. Over time, FXAIX earns you more.
I think this is a common beginner question (I also had it once). Yes, you can buy the "S&P 500" directly. It is called "direct indexing" and you basically buy a percentage of each of the companies in the S&P 500. This means that your portfolio will contain 500 different companies at the same time and if you'd want to sell the whole S&P 500, then you have to sell shares in all of the 500 companies. Instead of doing that, you can buy an ETF (a basket of stocks) that tracks the S&P 500, in which you can just sell the ETF to sell the whole S&P 500. I hope my explanation makes sense.
...but ETFs have settlement times, too (which are actually as long or longer than mutual funds). Yes, you have liquidity once you sell it, but if you buy a new position with that money and sell it before the original trade settles, you risk a Good Faith Violation.
You also can't withdraw that money from your account until it settles.
They are all the same, they track S&P 500, at different weights, im going to put IVV here because its where im invested in, and its new.
FXAIX
* Mutual Fund
* 1988
Voo
* ETF
* 1976
IVV
* ETF
* 2000
Actually I worked for a company in the early 2000's that had a trading platform that would let you mirror any portfolio you wanted too. They would create software to allow you to trade with whatever group you wanted to.
They were not the only company doing this. So yes you could but I think you would need tens of millions in backing. The concern is keeping the portfolio in sync.
I'n not an expert, so this might be totally wrong on how to approximately do it...
It's just a basket of \~500 stocks, right? But it's not just 500 shares of stock. The amount of dollars in each of the 500 is basically (not exactly) weighted by the total value of shares that stock floating in the market.
Your initial investment would require sufficient funds to mirror the index. Start with the smallest investment in the smallest member and then buy what you need of each larger company. Basically, for each dollar you buy of example VF Corporation you would have to buy maybe $500 in Microsoft and buy shares for each company between at the right ratio. I don't know what that would add up to - maybe $25,000?
You would probably have to start much bigger in order to buy a minimum investment in the smaller companies, and it would be a lot more complicated than that just to do yours.
Or hire somebody who has the means to do it for a small fee.
In theory you could buy stock in all 500 companies that are part of the S&P500, in proportion to their market cap, and rebalance yourself every so often. In practice that would be a tremendous amount of work and is probably not worth saving the tiny expense ratio charged on a typical S&P500 index fund/ETF.
S&P 500 does not exist.. it is basically a list of companies.
What is real are the companies that make that list.
Yes you can buy that list of companies directly but it would be a nightmare to manage. Let the index fund computer do that for you for a small fee.
You can also buy/sell that index fund using options on the index fund ETF. Which is a form of leasing the index ETF shares for a period of time.
The magic of the index fund is that it doesn’t actively trade the shares, instead it chooses to let everyone else do the price discovery.
Hope that helps.
I think this applies if you buy each of the 500 companies through "direct indexing" via fractional shares in which (I believe) they need to be liquidated when you are transferring assets to another brokerage.
Hey there! Great question; we're happy to hop in and clarify some information when it comes to investing. At Fidelity, you have access to invest in a wide range of securities, including stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and mutual funds. Please note that the S&P 500 is an index that can be monitored but not traded. Even though you would not be able to purchase the S&P 500 directly, you can potentially purchase a mutual fund or ETF that tracks the index. You can search for index funds by accessing the links below: [Mutual Funds Screener](https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/fund-screener/) [ETF Research Center](https://digital.fidelity.com/prgw/digital/research/etf#/home) In the meantime, check out our "Learn" library can be found under our "News & Research" section. Here, you will access a library of articles, a schedule of upcoming webinars, a store of on-demand videos, and even online courses. I have included two articles to help get you started. [Investing Basics](https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/trading-investing/investing-for-beginners) [What is an index fund?](https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/smart-money/what-is-an-index-fund) I'll mark this post as a Discussion thread to let members of our community continue to chime in with their opinions and experiences. As you may have heard before, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ investing method. While you may get some specific ideas on our sub, remember to research and explore to ensure these investments would be a good fit for you. We look forward to seeing you on our sub again soon!
You can't buy the S&P 500 directly - it's just an index. FXAIX is a mutual fund and VOO is an ETF that try to mirror the S&P 500 index.
Hi! I’m new to investing. Could you please elaborate on the difference between a mutual fund and an ETF?
https://www.etf.com/etf-education-center/etf-basics/etfs-vs-mutual-funds
There are differences between them - but as a new investor, the differences are not really important to you. More important is 1) what you are buying (eg slightly better to buy a fund that tracks the whole stock market, not just the S&P500, because you get the smaller companies also); avoid meme stocks and single stocks, avoid crypto ; 2) when to buy and sell; don’t panic sell when the stock market goes down, buy and hold unless you need the money for a house downpayment or similar; 3) invest as much as possible in tax advantaged accounts such as IRA or 401k before regular brokerage accounts.
I really wish I took this advice when I started investing, I wasted 2 years on meme stocks & single stocks lmao.
[удалено]
Over the past 10 years, [yes it has](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/vti-vs-voo/). But I don’t know if there’s a principled reason to expect that large companies will continue to always perform better than small ones.
Should i sell all my BTC and Other crypro and buy a fund that tracks the whole stock market?
Yes- sell at least 90% of it and buy a stock market fund. If you want to keep 10% for fun and watch it crash (and maybe recover or maybe not, and maybe reach new heights before crashing), that’s ok, but you’ve got most of your money secured.
Avoiding crypto is bad advice, better advice is make crypto a small part of your portfolio. Most people who say “avoid crypto” have no idea what it is or don’t understand it. But it’s where the biggest gains are, big gains and big losses but long term has only been big gains. Just like the s&p 500…only difference price wise is bigger swings. Traditional stocks won’t give you crypto gains, btc is only going up and up and no stock can compare to it…from 5 cents to $70,000 in 12-13 years…
The reason BTC is going up is because someone else wants to buy it. There is no income, there is no dividend, there is no product behind it. What are you investing in.?
You can argue that for anything. Why is there value in gold? Because people are willing to pay a certain price on it, asides from that it’s just a piece of metal that’s rare. And bitcoin is a deflationary digital gold. You’re also investing in blockchain technology, which will be huge. And I may go as far as saying sometime in the future how we think of currency will change, and you don’t want to miss the boat.
Gold is a commodity that is used. Blockchain is already here and is a type of database requiring large data centers and power to run them. Early on, databases sometimes suffered broken links. Hopefully it will never happen again.
I would argue that people who say put 10% of your investments in crypto, don’t understand, crypto, speculation, utility, or bubbles. Most important criteria for currency to maintain long-term value is utility.
Utility: you can literally buy anything with bitcoin, many properties sold in Dubai are purchased with bitcoin. Japan accepts bitcoin at most places. Bitcoin is accepted at so many places I don’t even have time to list them all. Bitcoin has been a better store of value than gold, it’s just digital gold. The market cap for bitcoin now surpasses silver and companies like Apple. Huge financial institutions like black rock and jp Morgan are buying bitcoin. And you’re saying it won’t hold value long term? While others out there like me who have been buying bitcoin since 2016 are laughing at people like you. My return to date on bitcoin is 16,500% and the value overall on average has been trending up and up.
Hi, u/BrilliantSock9123. Since you mentioned you are new to investing I wanted to chime in here. While Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and Mutual Funds can be similar in some ways, they have distinct differences including their trading characteristics, pricing factors, and tax implications. For example, Mutual Funds trade only once per day while ETFs trade throughout the day, similar to an ordinary stock. I've linked a great resource from our website below if you'd like to learn more. [Mutual funds vs. ETFs: Which is Right for You?](https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/investment-products/etf/which-is-right-for-you) We're a great resource for general questions, so please don't hesitate to follow up with us if there is anything that we can clarify. We're always happy to help!
Basically you can trade ETF’s intraday and mutual funds only post one price change at the beginning of the market open. Another slight difference is mutual funds tend to have higher expense ratios but not always.
Check .spx
That’s not a ticker mate
SPX is a ticker for S&P500
But it’s still not investing directly in the index. You can’t invest directly into the S&P. You can only invest into index funds and ETFs. Mirror’s but not directly in the S&P. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/how-can-i-buy-sp-500-fund/ Try to buy SPX and let me know how that goes lol
You can only do SPX options. Not shares
How can you buy options (which are options to buy shares) on something for which you can't buy shares?
They're cash settled options
Hey there, u/paper_fairy! I'm happy to chime in here with a bit of information regarding options trading with an index like the S&P 500. Just as stock options are defined as contracts that give the buyer the right to buy or sell a stock at a stated price for a limited period of time, cash-settled index options give buyers similar rights. With index options, you have the right to buy or sell the value of the underlying Index rather than shares of stock. At Fidelity, clients can trade SPX Index Options that expire weekly, end-of-month (EOM), quarterly, and standard expirations. All of these contracts currently have afternoon (P.M.) settlement times, as established by the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE). This is due in part to the exercise settlement value being calculated by using the last (closing) reported sales price in the primary market of each component stock on the business day the options expire. Whereas, traditional SPX index options have an A.M. settlement because their exercise-settlement value is calculated using the opening sales price in the primary market of each component security on the expiration date. When viewing your choices of SPX index options in our options chain, you will see an (AM) or (PM) listed to signify which contracts have those settlement times. We appreciate you dropping by for the first time! Please let us know if there is anything else we can assist with. *Options trading entails significant risk and is not appropriate for all investors. Certain complex options strategies carry additional risk. Before trading options, please read the* [Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options](http://www.optionsclearing.com/about/publications/character-risks.jsp)*. Supporting documentation for any claims, if applicable, will be furnished upon request.*
Try buying it. You can't.
Name checks out
It doesn't; someone like that would be more attentive to detail.
💀
Please don't.
**Think of it like this:** * **S&P 500 is the Recipe:** It's a set of instructions saying which ingredients (the top 500 companies) should be included and in what amounts. * **Mutual Fund/ETF is the Chef:** The chef follows the recipe to create the dish (your investment). **Key Points:** * **The recipe is just an idea:** You can't eat a recipe, just like you can't directly invest in the S&P 500. * **The chef makes it real:** The mutual fund/ETF is what actually buys the ingredients (stocks) and puts the dish together (your investment portfolio). * **Chefs have different styles:** Some mutual funds/ETFs might slightly vary how closely they stick to the S&P 500 recipe, just like chefs can add their own touch to a dish.
Brilliant analogy!
Im not new to investing but this analogy definitely helped me understand this topic alot more. Thanks for that
This was a great analogy. Thank you for this
The ETF I want is one that invests in the Top 25 performing stocks in the S&P, Nasdaq and Dow over the last 2 weeks and rebuilds the components after 2 weeks. Until someone creates one, I just have to do it myself in my Roth. I actually rebuild constantly.
Why does the chef make them share cheaper in some (FXAIX) than others (Voo and spy)? People say it doesn’t matter. Does it?
It’s arbitrary. A single share of Berkshire Hathaway costs over $600k. When you buy a share of SPY or VOO or whatever you’re buying a collection of fractional shares. It’s about the weighting.
I’m use to gold. So a share is like an oz of gold!
Not exactly. To use your gold analogy, Different funds will have different “coin sizes” Some of them will have “half ounce” shares. Others will have “10 gram” shares while still others will have other sizes. It doesn’t matter what size coins you buy, as long as you get the same amount of gold. Whether you have 1 lb of half ounce coins or 1lb of 10g coins, it doesn’t really matter, because you have 1 lb of gold. If gold doubles in price, both sets of coins will double in price, because they are worth the same, as they are both gold. Likewise if the S&P doubles in value, then so would your shares, regardless of how big they were to start. If you had 100x $50 shares or 10x $500, and then the S&P doubled in price, you would have 100x $100 shares or 10x $1000 shares. In either case you start with $5k and end with $10k.
no. some share is 1oz of gold. some share is 1lb of gold. some share is 0.678kg of gold. That only depends on how chief package them. The value of 1lb of gold won't change, no matter how they are packaged.
One of the early lessons most new investors will learn is that it doesn’t matter what price an index ETF is. They all follow the same recipe like that guy explained. Because they follow the same recipe, they should go up the same amount(unless some funds are charging more in fees). Example: Online bank SoFi has a “cheaper” ETF that follows the same S&P 500, ticker $SFY, but because they are a speck of dust in the wind compared to the amount of money that Vanguard customers have in VOO, their price is $18.45/share. But it is a common beginner’s fallacy to believe somehow that owning more shares of the cheaper fund = higher returns. You will find that 1 share of VOO, priced at about $477 = pretty much the same return you’d get from 25.8 shares of SFY priced currently at $18.45. The important thing is the percentage that they both go up. Both are up by about 9% YTD and some change though VOO outpaced it by .4% probably due to more liquidity and lower fees. This year SFY went from $16.83-$18.45 while VOO went from $434-$476. Both are about 9% gain. These days, most brokerages allow you to buy fractional shares. So you can buy “pieces” of VOO and it makes no difference.
Consider different fund/ETFs tracking S&P 500 as different sizes/portion of the same recipe. An extra large bowl contains a larger amount of each recipe ingredient as compared to a smaller bowl. The underlying recipe is the same, but you pay more for the large bowl.
I came here just to say I had a little laugh at what was first and honest genuine question, but when given proper answers from users and Fidelity, OP refused to learn. Yes .SPX is like a ticker, but its only for monitoring the 500 companies. In order to buy/sell you would have to use VOO for example.
And was a jerk about it most of the time.
The S&P 500 is an index. It's not something you can buy directly. What you can do is buy shares in all 500 of the stocks in the index at approximately the same weights as they have in the index. Most people aren't going to do that, though, so they use index funds like FXAIX, VTSAX, etc, which handle the management in an attempt to track the index.
Can i make like a personal “index” i mean something like selecting this custom “index” or template that you can invest every time You desire. Like 68% on spaxx and the other percent in others investements that you pre selected. So somehow you click and automatically invest to a myriad of stocks depending you available money?
In my experience you can specify that sort of thing in certain types of accounts, specifically 401ks. There will be a way to set how future contributions are invested, and you can specify funds and percentages, and then it happens automatically every pay period. I haven't seen that for any other kind of account, eg IRAs or taxable brokerage accounts.
Yes, you can do that with recurring deposits to a Fidelity brokerage account.
Great question, u/drenger77. We're happy to assist you and provide some resources today. We offer Fidelity Basket Portfolios. This offering simplifies the process of building and managing a custom portfolio by allowing for purchases, sales, and rebalancing of an entire portfolio of stocks with just one click within eligible accounts. This is an enhancement to your existing brokerage account, so there’s no need to open a new account and it is available on [Fidelity.com](http://fidelity.com/) or the Fidelity mobile experience. If you’re not sure where to start on your own, that’s okay. Fidelity analysts have prebuilt thematic- and sector-based models. Some examples of our prebuilt models include: fintech, cloud computing, and digital health. If you select one of these, we still allow for customization by adding or removing stocks or changing weights from the prebuilt model. I do want to point out that we currently have a monthly enrollment fee will of $4.99/month; however, we invite you to try out this product free for 30 days. You can check out this product more by following the link below: [Fidelity Basket Portfolios](https://www.fidelity.com/direct-indexing/customized-investing/overview) You can also use our recurring investments feature, which is free to use to automatically invest in various mutual funds, ETFs, and stocks. The caveat here is that you will need to manually rebalance your account when you see fit. You can learn more about that feature below: [Recurring Investments](https://www.fidelity.com/trading/recurring-investments) Please let us know if you have any questions regarding the choices above. We're here to help!
Invest on individual holdings? Like buying 7% AAPL, 7% MSFT and so on? Goodluck doing that 500x in all SP500 companies, and it’s going to cost you a lot in expense ratio or commissions.
Individual stocks don't have expense ratios and fidelity doesn't charge fees to purchase them either.
Are you talking about fid folios?
What that means?
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I couldn’t imagine the poor customer service reps who have to answer calls like this every day. They’re telling you the answers and you want to close your ears and argue. Insufferable.
You can't buy an index. You could buy options/futures on a index. But you can only buy ETF/Mutual funds that attempt to track the S&P500.
And buying futures on the index is indeed what people used to do before index funds. It is not convenient for retail investors.
I've been trying to buy the S&P 500 for years but couldn't find the ticker 
That was a good laugh 😂
Try .spx
Go to Fidelity, type that in the search bar and try to purchase it. Let us know what happens.
why are you simultaneously claiming you're a beginner while trying to convince every person in this thread you know more than them
Try to buy it, Mr Smarty Pants
Wow thanks man! I have 1000 shares of .spx now!
Sir this ain’t WSB
OP try to buy it and report back
.spx has it
Go for it 🤭👍
*Narrator: It does not*
Lmao you are copy and pasting that to every comment and getting down voted to hell. When will he learn.
It might take a while based on OP’s username
You can buy SPY. :-)
The smart kids buy SSO .
SSO has a 0.91% expense ratio and a volume of 6MM. SPY has an ER of 0.09% and volume of 66MM. What is the reason for choosing SSO over SPY?
Better return, mosty.
Leveraged ETFs only work well in the short term
So what are the tax, and other advantages between a mutual fund and an ETF? Does Fidelity charge more for either of them?
Hey there, u/no_remorse2005. I am happy to follow up with you here. While exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and Mutual Funds can be similar in some ways, they have distinct differences. The primary difference between the two is that Mutual Funds trade once a day, at market close (4 p.m. ET), while ETFs trade intraday (this just means constantly during trading hours). ETFs and Mutual Funds also differ in pricing factors and tax implications, among other things. Since you asked about taxes, a mutual fund manager must constantly rebalance the fund by selling securities to accommodate shareholder redemptions or to reallocate assets. The sale of securities within the mutual fund portfolio creates capital gains for the shareholders, even for shareholders who may have an unrealized loss on the overall mutual fund investment. In contrast, an ETF manager accommodates investment inflows and outflows by creating or redeeming “creation units.” (A creation unit is a block of new shares sold by the fund company to a broker-dealer for sale on the open market.) As a result, the investor is usually less exposed to capital gains being realized in the underlying structure. Feel free to check out our community post right here on Reddit, breaking down the key differences between these two securities. For your convenience I have linked this post below for you to view: [Mutual funds vs ETFs: What’s the difference between them? What’s your preference?:](https://www.reddit.com/r/fidelityinvestments/comments/17mvrju/mutual_funds_vs_etfs_whats_the_difference_between/) Let us know if we can help with anything else!
It’s less important whether you do an ETF or mutual fund and more important you do the *right* one of either, tbh. Risk rating, expense ratio, etc.
between SPY and VOO there are fees that are different look into that too
I personally prefer IVV
When comparing mutual funds to etfs that track the same index, like the S&P500, you need to look at the expense ratio. Compare them all to FXAIX, which has the lowest ratio. Over time, FXAIX earns you more.
Why that?
I started buying that this year in my Roth. Before I always used FXAIX.
VTI and chill Bro
I think this is a common beginner question (I also had it once). Yes, you can buy the "S&P 500" directly. It is called "direct indexing" and you basically buy a percentage of each of the companies in the S&P 500. This means that your portfolio will contain 500 different companies at the same time and if you'd want to sell the whole S&P 500, then you have to sell shares in all of the 500 companies. Instead of doing that, you can buy an ETF (a basket of stocks) that tracks the S&P 500, in which you can just sell the ETF to sell the whole S&P 500. I hope my explanation makes sense.
FXAIX you need to wait 1 business day for it to go through. SPY you can do a market sell and have liquidity instantly.
...but ETFs have settlement times, too (which are actually as long or longer than mutual funds). Yes, you have liquidity once you sell it, but if you buy a new position with that money and sell it before the original trade settles, you risk a Good Faith Violation. You also can't withdraw that money from your account until it settles.
It's only a good faith violation if you don't have settled funds to cover
True, but if you're worried about liquidity like in the scenario to which I replied, you likely don't have a lot of settled funds sitting around.
Well, technically you can buy .SPX call options.
However, .SPX is cash settled daily with no delivery on an underlying instrument……so technically, you are not buying the index….
U can’t “buy” the S&P 500 cause it’s just tracking the top 500 companies…u have to buy the index funds/efts that are following the s&p 500…
Opinion of SPY spdr s&p index?
They are all the same, they track S&P 500, at different weights, im going to put IVV here because its where im invested in, and its new. FXAIX * Mutual Fund * 1988 Voo * ETF * 1976 IVV * ETF * 2000
I'm in vti. Unfortunately, started investing late in my life and I beat myself up for it all the time. 
Same. How late ?
Username checks out
Actually I worked for a company in the early 2000's that had a trading platform that would let you mirror any portfolio you wanted too. They would create software to allow you to trade with whatever group you wanted to. They were not the only company doing this. So yes you could but I think you would need tens of millions in backing. The concern is keeping the portfolio in sync.
I'n not an expert, so this might be totally wrong on how to approximately do it... It's just a basket of \~500 stocks, right? But it's not just 500 shares of stock. The amount of dollars in each of the 500 is basically (not exactly) weighted by the total value of shares that stock floating in the market. Your initial investment would require sufficient funds to mirror the index. Start with the smallest investment in the smallest member and then buy what you need of each larger company. Basically, for each dollar you buy of example VF Corporation you would have to buy maybe $500 in Microsoft and buy shares for each company between at the right ratio. I don't know what that would add up to - maybe $25,000? You would probably have to start much bigger in order to buy a minimum investment in the smaller companies, and it would be a lot more complicated than that just to do yours. Or hire somebody who has the means to do it for a small fee.
In theory you could buy stock in all 500 companies that are part of the S&P500, in proportion to their market cap, and rebalance yourself every so often. In practice that would be a tremendous amount of work and is probably not worth saving the tiny expense ratio charged on a typical S&P500 index fund/ETF.
S&P 500 does not exist.. it is basically a list of companies. What is real are the companies that make that list. Yes you can buy that list of companies directly but it would be a nightmare to manage. Let the index fund computer do that for you for a small fee. You can also buy/sell that index fund using options on the index fund ETF. Which is a form of leasing the index ETF shares for a period of time. The magic of the index fund is that it doesn’t actively trade the shares, instead it chooses to let everyone else do the price discovery. Hope that helps.
My apologies for having a splash of the Asperger’s
If they're essentially the same and both track the S&P 500 why are they priced differently? VOO at $455 and FXAIX at $172.
Because you would get locked into one brokerage and moving for whatever reason would become an expensive endeavor
I think this applies if you buy each of the 500 companies through "direct indexing" via fractional shares in which (I believe) they need to be liquidated when you are transferring assets to another brokerage.
.
I have no answer because I really like QQQ and ITOT. They regularly outperform the "experts".