The Personal Finance Podcast - How I Break Down Index Funds for My Portfolio

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast,  we're going to talk about  how I analyze index funds to choose my investments. How Andrew Can Help You:  Listen to The Business Show here. Don'...t let another year pass by without making significant strides toward your dreams. "Master Your Money Goals" is your pathway to a future where your aspirations are not just wishes but realities. Enroll now and make this year count! Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! Learn to invest by joining  Index Fund Pro! This is Andrew’s course teaching you how to invest!  Watch The Master Money Youtube Channel! , Ask Andrew a question on Instagram or TikTok.  Learn how to get out of Debt by joining our Free Course  Leave Feedback or Episode Requests here.  Car buying Calculator here Thanks to Our Amazing Sponsors for supporting The Personal Finance Podcast. Shopify: Shopify makes it so easy to sell. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at  shopify.com/pfp Chime: Start your credit journey with Chime. Sign-up takes only two minutes and doesn’t affect your credit score. Get started at chime.com/ Thanks to Fundrise for Sponsoring the show! Invest in real estate going to fundrise.com/pfp Thanks to Policy Genius for Sponsoring the show! Go to policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quote. Go to joindeleteme.com/pfp20 for 20% off! Indeed: Start hiring NOW with a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to upgrade your job post at Indeed.com/personalfinance Turn your business dream into reality! Apply now at www.oneday.org/pfp  Go to Acorns.com/pfp and start automating your investments and get a $5 bonus today! Delete Me: Use Promo Code PFP for 20% off!  Relevant Episode:  How to Build a Forever Portfolio With Rob Berger Should You Rebalance Your Portfolio (The Answer May Surprise You!) The Complete Breakdown of The 2-Fund Portfolio (The Warren Buffett Portfolio) Connect With Andrew on Social Media:  Instagram  TikTok Twitter  Master Money Website  Master Money Youtube Channel   Free Guides:   The Stairway to Wealth: The Order of Operations for your Money  How to Negotiate Your Salary  The 75 Day Money Challenge  Get out Of Debt Fast  Take the Money Personality Quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:56 Find your advisor at IG Private Wealth.com. On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, how I analyze index funds to choose my investments. What's up, everybody, and welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host, Andrew founder of MasterMoney.com. And today on the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to be talking about how I analyze index funds. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the Master Money newsletter by going to mastermoney.com slash newsletter. And don't forget to follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or whatever your favorite podcast player is.
Starting point is 00:01:54 And if you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Now, today I'm going to dive into how I analyze index funds. And I go through a very specific process when I am looking at a new fund that I may want to invest in. And so today we're going to go through the nine different steps that I go through to try to factor in what are the big things that I want to know. And so I want to make this as easy as possible for you as well. And so we're going to go through some of these metrics that you may think that you already go through. And some of these you may not go through yet.
Starting point is 00:02:32 And it's going to be a great lesson for you in order to learn how to analyze index funds. So I have a ton of stuff to go through here in this episode. Without further ado, let's get into it. All right, so to start off this episode, we are going to get as basic as we possibly can for those who are brand new to index fund investing. And so if you are brand new to index fund investing, there is something that you need to search for when you are looking for this specific investment called a ticker symbol. Now, a ticker symbol is just going to be a bunch of various letters that identifies that
Starting point is 00:03:06 specific fund. And so when we are looking at index funds and ETFs, you may be looking for an S&P 500 index fund, for example. And Vanguard has a bunch of them. Well, Vanguard's ticker symbol is VFIAX. Now, I'm going to use VFIAX as an example throughout this entire episode. So you'll see me talking about VFIAX throughout this episode. So if you're listening at home and you want to pull up and kind of look at what I'm looking at, you can go to Vanguard's website and pull up VFIAX. Just a simple way to have an example here. But the ticker symbol, all it is, it's just the fund name essentially broken down. And so you need to understand what that ticker symbol is as you start to look through some of these investments.
Starting point is 00:03:45 So say, for example, you look up a list of S&P 500 index funds. Well, you'll see all these different fund names. And then in addition, you'll see these ticker symbols listed up and down on that fund. Next, we want to look at inception date. Now, this year just some of the other fun basics that I want to know. But inception date means when was this fun started? When did this begin? Because the longer the history, the better for me. I like, older funds. I like funds that have a long-term history because I can see how they performed throughout different economic cycles. We have had a ton of different things happen over the course of the last 50 years. And if I can find funds who have been through, for example, the tech bubble
Starting point is 00:04:27 in the late 90s and early 2000s, well, that's a great indicator of what would happen based on something really surging way too high in how that fund performs. But even more importantly is what I really want to know is are there funds that were available back during the 2007, 2008 recession? Why? Because I want to see the worst case scenario. What would happen to this fund in the worst case scenario? And so I look that far back to see if these funds have that history. Now, if there's a newer fund, there's nothing wrong with that. You can still invest in newer funds. But I like older funds because I can look back historically and see what happened. 2007 and 2008 is a really important time for me because that is when the great recession happened, the stock market collapse, and most of these
Starting point is 00:05:15 investments dropped 50%. And I want to see exactly how that happened and when it happened on some of these charts. Now, does charting some of this stuff truly, truly matter? Not always, it doesn't always matter when you're looking at this, but I want to see that inception date so I can understand what happened in the past. In addition, I also want to see how a fund performed over the course of I want to see how it recovered from 2008 and 2009 and what happened during that big economic surge all the way up until 2020. Because when you look at 2020, what happened in 2020? COVID-19, where we had some pullbacks in 2020. Did it weather that storm?
Starting point is 00:05:56 Was it resistant against some of these pullbacks? Or was it something that had a much larger impact? If it had a much larger impact, it may be too heavily weighted in certain assets. We'll talk more about that as time goes on here. So that's the first thing is I'm just looking at those two. fund basics. Hey, what is the ticker symbol? We're talking about that just for people who are brand new to index fund investing. And then secondly, the inception date. Okay. So now we're going to dive into some deeper dive stuff here. Now, if you are brand new to index fund investing, we have a course
Starting point is 00:06:25 called Index Fund Pro. An Index Fund Pro is the investing for beginners course that is going to teach you step by step all of this stuff, but we're also going to dive deeper into this. So if you're interested in Index Fund Pro, you can go to Mastermoney.com slash courses and check out Index Fund Pro. Let's go to the second step, which is fees and efficiency. All right, next we are going to be looking at fees and efficiency. And what we want to really be looking at first is the expense ratio. Now, the expense ratio is going to be the percentage of assets deducted annually for fund management. What does that mean? What is that jargon even talk about? What this means is
Starting point is 00:07:03 how much you're paying out of your pocket to the fund manager in order to manage this fund. These are the fees that are coming out of your pocket. And we want to keep this as low as possible, especially when we are investing in funds. If you are getting nothing out of this fund outside of just being invested in this fund, you do not want to be paying a high expense ratio. You want to keep those fees as low as possible. In fact, the lower, the better. Now, there are a lot of fantastic index funds out there now that have zero percent expense ratios.
Starting point is 00:07:35 So if you're out there and you have a financial advisor who, is putting you in a really high fee mutual fund or a really high fee expense ratio, you want to make sure that you have a conversation about that because there are a lot of low fee expense ratios out there. For example, Fidelity has zero fee expense ratio index funds. They're absolutely amazing. I invest in some of them and they are something that I think a lot of people can look into where you pay zero percent fee. Now, what is a good expense ratio? That's going to be the big question a lot of people ask. And really a very good expense ratio is anything below 0.10% or 10 basis points is what a lot of people will call that. So anything below 10 basis points or 0.10% is a very, very good expense ratio.
Starting point is 00:08:18 Acceptable is anything between 0.10 and 0.30 because in that range, most likely some of those funds are at least low enough. And you'll see how impactful this is in a second. I'm going to do the math for you. but you're going to see that that's low enough to see a not as big of a difference as some of these other expense ratios will be. Now, as we get above 0.40 and 0.50% expense ratio, those fees are going to really impact your portfolio. Unless you're getting help from someone, if someone is helping you with your money, you should not be paying that high of an expense ratio for a fund. So if you're investing in index funds and all you're doing is buying an index and you have that high expense ratio, then that is going to be something you really,
Starting point is 00:09:02 want to avoid. That's what advisors should be charging you. That shouldn't be something where you are paying that much in an expense ratio and having to worry about paying all these costs up front. Now, here's one thing I want you to note when it comes to expense ratios. You want to get them as low as possible, but sometimes in things like your 401k, you only have so many options. It is so much better to get your money at least invested than it is to not invest at all because of the expense ratio. So if you are looking in your 401k and all of the options are just terrible and the lowest expense ratio you can find is some sort of S&P 500 index fund that has a 0.50% expense ratio, then more power to you. At least you have something to invest in, especially if you're getting a 401k match.
Starting point is 00:09:46 But when it comes to your own investments where you can go out and choose your investments, you need to keep them at least below 0.30% when it comes to the funds themselves if you can. That's the goal is if you can. Now, sometimes you have no options. advisors have no options. It just depends on the specific scenario, but you want to try to keep it as low as possible, especially if you're the one choosing it. If you're going out to Vanguard or Fidelity or Charles Schwab, then you should not have a problem finding expense ratios lower than that. Now, let me show you the impact of these expense ratios and why this is so incredibly important. So we ran the numbers to see what would happen if you invested $10,000 every single year and you got a 7% rate of return. Now, this is over the course of 30 years,
Starting point is 00:10:28 And I think a 7% rate of return is something that is a conservative rate of return over the course of the next few decades. But if you looked at this and you got a 7% rate of return and you had a 0.05% expense ratio, which is very normal for Vanguard index funds. It is very normal for ETFs to get a 0.05 expense ratio. If that happened, the total amount you would have paid over the course of 30 years is $8,455. And your portfolio value would be $936,000. Now, let's say you spent a 0.15% expense ratio. Well, your portfolio is going to have paid $25,113, and the future value would be $919,000. But as we start to jump this up, let's say, for example, you paid a 0.35 expense ratio.
Starting point is 00:11:19 Well, that a 0.35 expense ratio is $887,000 is what your portfolio would be worth. and you would have paid $57,445 out of pocket. That's a huge, huge different. But what I want you to note here is as I start to talk about the total fees paid, you're also missing out on the opportunity cost of that money. That money could be compounding to a much greater number if you were not paying those fees. So you've got to remember that that's a huge, huge impact when it comes to your money. If I'm paying $57,000 out of pocket going forward,
Starting point is 00:11:52 I want to make sure I'm paying somebody to help me invest my money instead of paying it to some sort of mutual fund manager or something like that. You can find a fee-only advisor or something along those lines that's going to actually help you with your money if you're going to pay that much in fees anyways. Next, we have a 0.65 percent expense ratio. I'm just going to jump it up here each time. Your total portfolio value would be $841,000. So now we're looking at a $100,000 difference. and you would have paid out to that index fund, $103,000. Now, let's look at the major impact of a 1% fee. A 1% fee would take your entire portfolio down to $783,000,
Starting point is 00:12:30 and you would have paid $160,000 over the course of 30 years in fees. And then a 1.15% is $770,000, and you would have paid $174,000 in fees. Fees really, really matter. And what this analysis I just did does not factor in is also the opportunity cost, because the opportunity cost is going to shift to millions of dollars. Because if you do the math on what you invested there, say, for example, you were thinking through $10,000 per year over the course of 30 years. Well, you invested $300,000 into those fund. Well, if you're paying $174,000 in fees, imagine how much more that fund would grow if you
Starting point is 00:13:07 actually had those dollars to reinvest over that time frame. So that's how impactful fees can be. It is a million dollar decision to make sure you lower your assets fees. meaning your index funds or your mutual funds, they need to have very low fees because there are some fantastic funds out there with great returns that have low fees. Next was what I look at is turnover ratio. So when we're looking at fees and cost efficiency, fees are first. Then I look at the turnover ratio. Now, the turnover ratio is something that measures how frequently the fund buys and sells stock. A lower turnover ratio under 10% is way, way better for tax efficiency. So what I really look at here is I first if a fund has a turnover ratio higher than 50% if that turnover ratio is above
Starting point is 00:13:53 50% a it's most likely a mutual fund B if it's an index fund I am not looking at it why because that means they are buying and selling way too many securities what is the purpose of an index fund the purpose of an index fund is to mirror the index you must be able to mirror the index if you cannot mirror the index and you're just buying and selling securities left and right that means you're doing way too much out here. You're doing too much. And so you need to make sure that if you have an index fund, you are keeping that turnover ratio lower.
Starting point is 00:14:25 Why? Because you pay less taxes, the lower the turnover ratio. And so we need to make sure that that turnover ratio is low. So for broad market index funds, typically the turnover ratio is going to be very, very low. You want it to be like right around 5, 10% somewhere in that range. That's going to give you a great indicator
Starting point is 00:14:43 as to how much they are buying and selling investments. Now, mutual funds, for example, they're going to have really high turnover ratios because they have a professional money manager. They have a whole team of Harvard and Yale graduates who are sitting in some sort of high rise out there, which is why you are paying them 1% expense ratio. You are paying for the high rise. You are paying for the Harvard graduate salary. You are paying for the fund manager's salary. And so that's why mutual funds have such high expense ratios, which is why I want you to avoid a lot of these mutual funds because the expense ratios are so high. So we want to make sure that when we look at some of
Starting point is 00:15:18 these turnover ratios, we want to make sure that they are below 50% is the first benchmark. But secondly, you really want it below 20% if you're going to invest in something like that. And so really, the sector funds are going to be right around that 20% range and then actively managed funds are often 50% plus. For example, VFIAX, who we are using in this example, has a turnover ratio of 2%, which means it's very tax efficient. It's a very very, very, very tax-efficient investments. Now, ETFs tend to be even more tax-efficient than mutual funds due to their structure. And so funds with those lower turnover ratios and capital gains distributions tend to be more tax-friendly. ETFs also do that, which is great. So index funds, ETFs. I'm using
Starting point is 00:15:59 them interchangeably here. They are different, but I'm using them interchangeably here just because the purpose of both of them is to mirror an index. So if you like VLO or VTI more than the index fund, then that is great, too. Next, we're going to get into performance and risk metrics. So lately, I've been noticing how fast things are changing at home. The kids are growing like crazy, clothes don't fit anymore, and routines are changing. And it just hits you. Life is expanding. And when your life grows, your responsibility grows with it.
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Starting point is 00:19:42 So first, I'll look at the one-year rate of return just to make sure it measures up with all the other funds in the industry. So if I'm looking at an S&P 500 index fund, I want to make sure if the fund returned 10% last year, I want to make sure that this fund also returned 10% because the purpose of index funds and ETFs, again, is to mirror the index. If it is not mirroring the index, then all of a sudden that rate of return is going to be off. I have seen funds where they are off one, two, or three percent. And that can be a massive difference in your rate of return in the long run if you are trying
Starting point is 00:20:15 to mirror an index. You want to make sure that they are not too far off on the one year. The one year, though, does not matter in the long run, meaning that I do not want you to rely on one year rate of return in order to make your decision. The stock market in the short run is a voting machine. In the long run, it is a weighing machine. We don't care what happens over the course of year over year. We don't care what happens every five years.
Starting point is 00:20:37 What we care about is decades when we are long-term investors. And we as wealth builders are long-term investors. And so we care what happens over the course of 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 years. So secondarily, I will look at that five-year return to see what happens. All I'm doing with the one year and the five-year is just comparing against other funds to make sure they are all equaled out. And then I look at the actual S&P 500, for example, if I'm investing in an S&P-500 index fund, I'll look at the actual S&P 500 and make sure they are as close as possible.
Starting point is 00:21:09 Now, if they're slightly off, that's completely fine. It is very normal to be slightly off. But if they got to be as close as possible in order to make sure that they are mirroring that index properly. Then we're going to look at the 10-year plus return. So the 10-year plus return is going to help you gauge long-term reliability. Now, if it's a newer fund, for example, then it may only have one year and five-year returns. I don't love investing in newer funds because of this. A great example of this is QQQQ.
Starting point is 00:21:33 So QQQQ is a newer fund. And typically, if you look at QQQ, it's one of the most popular funds out there because they invest a lot of money into advertising. I think they do super bowl commercials all the time. And somewhere I read that they do like hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising at QQ. Now, if you look at QQQQ, it doesn't have as long of a time horizon as some of these other funds. And so you want to make sure you have the history to be able to go and look back as far back as you possibly can. And so what I really like to look at the 10 year, the 20 year, and the 30 year to give more insight on. full performance in the economic cycles. Again, I go back to 2007 and 2008. I go back to the tech
Starting point is 00:22:09 bubble if it goes that far back. I will go back to the early 90s when bonds were surging. There's a lot of different things that happened over the course of the last few decades that you can look and see what happened during some uncertain times and how does that impact my money going forward. And so that's how I like to think about some of this stuff when it comes to looking at the past. And so you can go back and look and, for example, if you look at VFIAX or F, A-I-X, and you can kind of compare the two and see what the differential is. Over the course of one year, you know, they had the same rate of return at 10.2%. Over the last five years, they had the same rate of return over the last 10 years and over the last 20 years. That should be very normal. That should be
Starting point is 00:22:48 something where if they are mirroring the index, they should be very close in their rate of return. And the standard deviation should not be much off. A slight standard deviation should be what these returns can fluctuate. But outside of that, it should not be anything crazy whatsoever. And then the other thing that I look at, and this is more of an advanced thing that you don't have to look at, but this is just going to be the max drawdown. So with the max drawdown, I look at the worst peak to trough decline, meaning the peak is obviously the top of the market cycle. When did this index fund peak last? And then when was the last time that it actually bottomed out? And what is that difference right there? If you measure that difference with each and every single index fund,
Starting point is 00:23:27 it should be very close to the S&P 500, for example, if you are measuring against the S&P 500. And so if it is way, way off, why did it decline so much or why did it peak so much more than what the S&P 500 did? You don't really want it to be that far off because, again, we're trying to mirror the index. Now, let's get into number four, which is the yield. All right. So with number four, we are trying to look at the yield or the dividend yield, which measures the annual dividend payments as a percentage of the fund price. So if you're looking at broad market index funds, a typical yield is going to be like 1.3% to 2%. point five percent. And if you're looking at high dividend funds, which SCHD is an example of that,
Starting point is 00:24:09 they're really right around 3 percent to 5 percent. And so, for example, VFIAX has a 1.5 percent yield. Well, SCHD has a 3.7 percent yield. So if your play is to go out there and you want high dividend funds, then looking for a higher yield when you're looking at that index fund is going to be really, really important to you. In addition, you want to look at the dividend growth rate. So the rate at which the dividends will increase over time is a very important metric for dividend investor. And if you're investing in these funds so that you can have an income coming in based on whatever that dividend yield is, then you want to make sure that you are looking at that growth rate as well. Now, the S&P 500's dividend over the course of the last few decades has grown about 6% every single
Starting point is 00:24:53 year. And so that's just another number that you want to make sure that you were looking at. And then the payout consistently of the fund, you want to make sure that that fund is paying out that dividend when it is supposed to. And so you want to look at historically when those dividends were paid out and whether it has a full fund history of cutting dividends during downturns. That's why I like to see 2007 and 2008. I want to see who cut their dividends because dividends and reinvesting those dividends is a very important metric when you want to look at the total rate of return. And so you want to make sure that you are looking at that for sure. Now number five, the next thing I look at is I do portfolio the comparison with the top holdings. And what you want to know is what are the top holdings
Starting point is 00:25:32 and how are they weighted? Specifically the top 10 holdings. The top 10 holdings are very important when it comes to index fund in ETF investing. And so you can go and look up some of these funds and say to yourself, well, what are the top 10 holdings of this fund? So first, I'm going to look at VFIAX to give you an example of some of the top 10 holdings here at the time of I'm recording this. Okay. So the top 10 holdings in VFIAX, which is the S&P 500 index fund, are Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Facebook Class A shares, Alphabet, which is Google, Class A shares, Tesla, Broadcom, Alphabet Class C shares, and then Berkshire Hathaway, which is Warren Buffett's company. Those are the top 10 holdings in the S&P 500. Now, these will shift over time. And if you can go look at a
Starting point is 00:26:20 stock market chart of 2000, you can go look at one of 2010, of 2020, and now at the time I'm recording this, and you will see there are going to be very different companies in those top 10 holdings over time. The beautiful thing about index funds and ETFs is when companies start to struggle, a better company comes into play and you are still invested in that fund, which is why I love index funds and ETFs. But I like to compare the top 10 holdings to make sure they are weighted properly A. And in addition, they are also very close to the S&P 500 because this really matters. The top 10 holdings, especially in something like an S&P 500, are going to be the majority of the fund. And
Starting point is 00:26:54 So you want to make sure that those are weighted properly. And so I always look at the top 10 holdings to see what those companies are. But I really like to even stretch it out to the top 25 holdings. Because when you look at the top 25 holdings, you can see what else is heavily weighted in this fund. So you can go beyond that and see, you know, Tesla, Home Depot, lows. There's going to be a bunch of other companies in that top 25 holding, for example, in the S&P 500. Then I look at the sector allocation. What is the sector allocation?
Starting point is 00:27:18 This makes sure that your fund is actually diversified. So when I look at VFIAX, for example, I'll look at the S&P. see that 10% of it is in communication services. 11% is in consumer discretionary. 5.5% is in consumer staple. So Johnson and Johnson, healthcare companies, those types of things. Energy is 3.2%. Financials is 14.10%. Health care is 10.5%. Industrial is 8.3%. Now, the next one, which is information technology tech, is 30%. That is very normal. Tech is always going to be highly weighted in the S&P 500 because they are some of the most profitable companies in the country right now. Materials 1.9% real estate 2.1% utilities 2.3%. Utilities help out with some of that
Starting point is 00:28:02 volatility, especially when times get tough. So this is how this is kind of weighted and structured. And so you can see this is heavily weighted in IT and technology, but there's some other great weighting as well in terms of financials and health care and some of these other things. So I like to look at sector allocation and make sure that we understand what is going on. Then I look at market cap. So market cap identifies what the fund focuses on. You have seen, there's all these different kinds of funds like large cap funds, which is what the S&P 500 or the total stock market fund would be. There's mid-cap funds and then there's small-cap funds. You just want to understand what you're investing in and making sure that you have exactly what you're looking for. And then geographic exposure. So for me, I don't invest a ton of international funds. Instead, I like to find funds like the total stock market index fund that also have international business being done. And so, for example, VEA, X US, which is Vanguard's total international ETF, has 15% exposure in Japan, it has 10% in the UK, it has 8% in China. That's the kind of thing you want to see if you're investing in an international fund. You want to be spread across some of these economies that are established to make sure
Starting point is 00:29:07 that they are tracking correctly. And so that's how we want to look at that one for sure when it comes to portfolio composition. Now what we're going to do is we are going to look at the fund size. So one thing we want to note is how much assets does the fund have under management? And So when you look at some of these assets under management, is it a very large fund? Is it a small fund? Because this can mean that anything under $100 million can be risky if the fund is going to get into trouble. And so if the fund gets in trouble, if it's under $100 million, that risk level goes up in comparison to a lot of other funds which have trillions of dollars. In fact, something like SPY, which is the S&P 500 ETF, trades $30 billion daily.
Starting point is 00:29:48 So you can see a drastic difference with some of these funds. and you want to look at that average daily volume as well when you look at some of these funds. Now, one big thing to do, and as we're getting closer here to wrap it up, one big thing we do is we want to also look at competitor comparison. So let's take the S&P 500, for example. The last thing I want you to do is just pick one S&P 500 index fund because somebody online told you to. Instead, I want you to compare it to all the other S&P 500 funds
Starting point is 00:30:14 that are some of the big ones in the market. And so you can look at, let's take VFIAX, which we've been using as an example so far in this episode. If you look at VFIAX, which is Vanguard's S&P 500 index fund, you also want to compare that to Fidelity's index fund, and Schwab's index fund, and the ETFs. And so what I would do is I would take VFIAX and compare it to Fidelity's FX AIX, and I would compare it to Schwab's SWPPX,
Starting point is 00:30:40 and then I would also look at the ETFs. Now, usually Fidelity Vanguard Schwab, those are the three that I look at. You can also look at something like I shares, which is Black Rock's portfolio, you can look at Spider. There's a bunch of other ones out there. And then I look at the ETF. So SPY or V-O-O or IVV,
Starting point is 00:30:58 those are all going to be compared on one little chart there. And then you can go back and forth and see some of the rate of returns. What you're going to notice is most of them are pretty close. And then you just pick the one where your brokerage is or whatever is easiest for you. But you want to make sure that you are comparing all those to see if there's any discrepancies that might be there.
Starting point is 00:31:16 And then last thing is I want you to, think through some of the risk factors and potential drawbacks. So I want you to think through the market risk. And that's why we always like to look at the history and what would happen if the market crashes or if your investment goes down in some way, shape, or form. I want you to look at the sector risk. So if you're looking at international funds, for example, or if you're doing bond funds, or if you're doing funds in emerging markets, what is that sector risk and are you taking too much of a risk based on your specific risk tolerance? And then the foreign exchange risk. That's a big one I think a lot of people don't think through. But international funds may fluctuate.
Starting point is 00:31:48 with currency swing. So sometimes there will be a president or a prime minister or someone across the world who says one or two things and all of a sudden international funds will fluctuate because the currency is going to swing. And so you got to make sure that you understand some of those currency risks as well. There's a lot of risks that come into play with international funds that we don't think about always here in domestic funds in the U.S. So final thoughts that I want to give you here. When analyzing an index fund, I want you to look at low expense ratios is number one. Two, consistent performance over the course of, you know, decades in comparison to their peers. Three, I want you to look at that low turnover ratio so we can get some tax efficiency going.
Starting point is 00:32:27 I want you to look at diversification across holdings and low tracking error to the benchmark. And we want to make sure that we do that side-by-side comparison. All of those are really, really important to make sure that you are making the right selection because the last thing I want you to do is go out, make a selection with some fund. You're paying way too high of an expense ratio. It's not tracking properly in comparison to the end. So that's going to be really, really important. Listen, if you guys want to learn more about investing in index funds in ETFs, again,
Starting point is 00:32:54 we have Index Fund Pro available for you. If you go to MasterMoney.com slash courses, check out Index Fund Pro. That will take you from beginner all the way to advance when it comes to index fund investing. And if you're getting value to this episode, consider sharing it with a family member or friend and leaving a five-star rating review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast, I cannot thank you guys enough for listening to this episode. And we will see you on the next episode. so.
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