Wick

What an index fund is

Funds & Diversification

Buy the whole haystack

An index fund holds every company in a list — the S&P 500, say — in proportion to size. You are not picking winners; you are owning the market and letting the winners grow into a bigger slice on their own. It is the closest thing investing has to a default answer.

Check yourself

An index fund's job is to…

  1. Beat the market
  2. Match the market at very low cost correct
  3. Time entries and exits

It makes no attempt to be clever. That is the feature, not the compromise.

Learn this properly

This term has a full interactive lesson in Wick — the chart, the pattern to tap, and a live practice terminal to try it on. Free to start.

Open the lesson

Related terms