Investing Blog

Where to Buy Index Funds: The Best Online Brokers for Index Investing

March 17, 2019 By Kevin | Just Start Investing

Part of learning how to index invest is knowing where to buy index funds. Not all online brokerage accounts are created equal when it comes to buying index funds and ETFs.

Some online brokers offer rock bottom fees and a wide variety of index funds to choose from. Others charge you for every trade and don’t offer index funds with low expense ratios. Choosing the right one can save you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars ever year.

There are a few things to look for when deciding where to buy index funds. We’ll start by walking through that criteria so you have the knowledge to select the best online brokers on your own. Then, I’ll share some of the best online brokers out there that Just Start Investing has found.

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What is an Expense Ratio and Why it’s Important

March 3, 2019 By Kevin | Just Start Investing

An expense ratio affects everything from exchange traded funds (ETFs) to mutual funds. It’s important to keep expense ratios as low as possible, as a high expense ratio can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars over the long term.

An Index investing strategy can quickly get derailed if you do not keep costs low. With a high expense ratio, your portfolio is no longer getting the return of the overall market, it’s getting less!

We’ll dive further into what an expense ratio is and why it’s important to take into account when choosing index funds. But first, our disclaimer:

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What is Index Investing: A Beginner’s Guide

February 24, 2019 By Kevin | Just Start Investing

Index investing is a great strategy for beginners. It takes the complexity out of stock picking because you are buying the overall stock (or bond) market, not individual stocks. It guarantees your returns will be similar to the market you are looking to mirror (i.e., the S&P 500).

Many expert investors, like Warren Buffett, agree with and promote index investing. As Buffett told CNBC, “Consistently buy an S&P 500 low-cost index fund… I think it’s the thing that makes the most sense practically all of the time.”

Oh, and that was after Buffett won a $1 million bet against a hedge fund. He won that bet by beating the returns of the hedge fund over a ten year period by investing in, you guessed it, an index fund.

We’ll provide more details on why index investing works and how to get started, but first, what even is index investing?

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How Much to Invest to Reach Your Goals

February 10, 2019 By Kevin | Just Start Investing

If you have no idea how much to invest or save to reach your goals, don’t worry, you’re not alone.

Well, maybe worry a little, because if you don’t know how much you should be investing, chances are it’s not enough. The last thing you want is to wake up in 30 years and realize your another 30 years away from retiring!

Let’s have that wake up call be now, if necessary.

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Don’t Look at Your Investments! Focus on Long Term Investing.

January 20, 2019 By Kevin | Just Start Investing

Long term investing is easy. However, there is a lot of distracting, short term investment advice floating around these days. One of the most popular cliches is to, “buy low, sell high.”

Sounds like a winning proposition, but there is a problem with that strategy. No one knows when the market (or a stock) is “low” and when the market (or a stock) is “high.” Better advice is to “buy now, sell much later.” In other words, focus on long term investing and ignore the day to day. This way, you will guarantee you are buying low (now) and selling high (in the much distant future).

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