Quote:
Originally Posted by rsmurano
A couple of things:
Nobody can say etfs are the way to go, there’s 1000’s of etfs, some are good, some are dogs. Just like index funds, stocks, some are great, some are good, and others are dogs.
As for how people make money, it’s not on just the gains, it’s on your whole portfolio. For example: Fisher investments wants almost $60,000 up front fees to manage my money with no guarantees if they can do better than what I can do. 10 years they would get 1/2 a million dollars.
Also, 6% is a very low return. Put your money in a money market to get 5.3% and it’s safe. I had a couple index funds that I was getting over 35% and some stocks that doubled in a little over 6 months, with no cost except the .02-.04% fund fees.
For me, the only benefit of an etf is that you can trade them like stocks, no waiting period to settle or buy. I had a couple of etfs that were making in the high 20’s%.
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Over the past 30 years or so, I have used the Vanguard S&P 500 Index mutual fund for almost all of my stock investments. I also have some shares in the Fidelity Magellan growth fund, which I purchased at least 30 years ago. At one time, the Magellan fund was the largest and hottest fund around and managed by Peter Lynch, who is no longer the fund manager. Today, I checked the returns for both funds for the past 10 years. I was surprised to discover that the Vanguard index fund has an average annual return of 12.65 percent and the Magellan fund has an average annual return of 13.05 percent. So, you can shop around for stocks, funds, and ETFs, but what is the point? I think index investing is the way to go.