Quote (Thor123422 @ Feb 5 2021 03:52pm)
Do you have any "index funds for dummies" type resources you would recommend?
ETF's or index funds are pretty simplistic. The main concern being what you want to hold, be it sector specific, indexed against the total US market, s&p, whatever. Next consideration is usualy does the fund / Etf have any distributions. It's possible you don't want dividends, return on capital, or other forms of distributions resulting in taxable transactions (Roc is typically not unless your cost base goes negative).
After that compare fees against other similar funds or etfs. I give little consideration to if the fund is at risk since I'm typically using Vanguard or another major fund provider. But if using smaller ones if a fund closes suddenly it forces you to sell regardless if you want to or not, and it may not be an advantageous time.
I typically back test performance on a website called portfolio visualizer and compare it to various other things I'm considering to look at its historical performance even though it's always readily available in the fact sheet.
I don't know USA rules but in Canada if you dispose of an investment to harvest a loss then immediately rebuy that investment in under 30 days or buy a comparable investment, say I sold my total US market Etf to harvest a loss and bought a similar ishares total US market Etf with those proceeds it would be deemed a superficial loss and it cannot be used come tax time. USA may not have that rule but it can be costly when considering tax loss harvesting.
High risk ones that have peaked my interest lately is cyber security etfs and ones that specifically just buy IPOS and hold them for x period of time. Also considering looking for a water ETF, water investments have done well in the last few years.
One thing to consider (although there's little to do about it) is that given the mass amount of investors moving to etfs as mutuals fall off and investing is made easier is that naturally the underlying assets are being inflated since each one of these ETF's have to adjust their holdings to hold x% of a stock. But there's little to do about that.
This was typed on a phone so it's probably a mess.
This post was edited by SBD on Feb 6 2021 01:52pm