Why index funds are the smartest way to invest passively

For the first time ever, the amount of money invested in funds that track the market has surpassed the amount managed by people who pick stocks, according to data from research firm Morningstar. Or, as The Wall Street Journal puts it, index funds are the New Kings of Wall Street👑.

Index funds that track the performance of a particular market index, like the S&P 500, Nifty 50 have grown in popularity in recent decades as people have found success investing in the market, rather than in individual stocks.
As of August 31, Morningstar figures show that U.S. index funds have $4.27 trillion in assets, compared with $4.25 trillion for actively managed funds that have the goal of beating the market.

Index funds are a form of passive investing because they allow investors to buy a lot of stocks at once and hold them for the long term. What’s more, they have lower associated costs than actively managed funds.

The first index funds were mutual funds introduced in the 1970s by John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard Group. Nowadays, they and many exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which are also considered index funds, have become a popular way to invest. Accounting firm PwC estimates that, in 2018, 36% of the money in the market was invested in such passive funds.

Here’s why index funds make sense for most investors:

Index funds don’t require you to be an expert🎓

While professional investors make a living by trying to outperform the market, that strategy is difficult to successfully execute over a long time period. Even famed billionaire investor Warren Buffett, whose stock picks are closely followed, has said that index funds make “the most sense practically all the time.”

That’s because, though individual stock prices can fluctuate wildly, the broader index has tended to go up over time — and with index funds, you don’t have to pick the winning stocks to benefit from the market’s overall gains. The SENSEX, an index representing the 30 largest Indian companies, has delivered average annual returns of almost 18% going back 40-plus years.

Annual Return📈

So far, the SENSEX is experiencing above-average growth.
The past decade in particular has been an excellent time to invest in index funds.
If you’d invested 100 Rs back then, in an ETF that tracks this benchmark index — and reinvested your dividends, or the quarterly profit you’re paid by the fundholder — your investment would be worth more than 63,500 Rs today!

You won’t lose money to hefty fees💰

Index funds pool money from a group of investors and then buy the individual stocks or other securities that make up a particular index. That model helps to reduce the associated costs that fund managers charge, compared to those funds where someone is actively strategizing which investments to include.

Fees matter because they can cut into your overall return. Among equity mutual funds — those made up of stocks — the average expense ratio for index funds was 0.08% in 2018, compared with 0.76% for actively managed funds, according to figures from the Investment Company Institute. That works out to 0.70 Rs for every 1,000 Rs invested versus 7.60 Rs.

By not paying a lot for someone to pick and choose your investments, you get to keep more money to reinvest in your portfolio.

Index funds are a simple way to diversify🍡

With an index fund, the mix of stocks — what’s known as its diversification — helps to minimize your portfolio’s related risk. That means your portfolio’s value is less likely to fluctuate wildly because an index like the SENSEX typically moves up or down less than 1% on any given day.

You could buy all components of an index individually, but you’d spend a lot of money doing so. With an index fund, you can get all those stocks with the click of a button.

Again, investing in the index quite surprisingly is the safest for those who know investing as well as for those who don’t. Which one of these are you? Are you invested yet?