Reuben Gregg Brewer, The Motley Fool
Sat, January 10, 2026 astatine 9:40 AM CST 6 min read
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Warren Buffett has agelong recommended that investors simply bargain the S&P 500 index.
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Vanguard S&P 500 ETF is 1 of the lowest-cost choices for tracking the S&P 500 index.
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Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF offers a somewhat antithetic attack to tracking the S&P for those acrophobic astir this imaginable scale flaw.
Warren Buffett earned the nickname the Oracle of Omaha due to the fact that of his concern way record. He has precocious stepped down arsenic the CEO of his concern vehicle, Berkshire Hathaway, but that doesn't alteration the worth of the remarkably palmy investor's advice.
Buffett's advice? Most investors should conscionable bargain the S&P 500 scale (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) and clasp forever. Two options for achieving this are Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) and Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (NYSEMKT: RSP). Here's what you request to know.
The cardinal information to recognize astir the S&P 500 scale is that it isn't really meant to way the banal market. The existent intent of the scale is to way the U.S. economy. The hand-selected database of astir 500 stocks comprises ample and economically important U.S. businesses spanning each large industries. The crushed Buffett likes the S&P 500 scale truthful overmuch is that it grows on with the U.S. economy, which has a agelong past of dependable enlargement down it.
There are immoderate nuances to understand. For starters, the stocks are selected by a committee. So determination is worldly quality power connected and oversight of the index. The companies are not selected due to the fact that they are performing well, per se, but due to the fact that they are ample and economically important. That fact, combined with the purposeful inclusion of assorted concern sectors, means determination volition ever beryllium a premix of powerfully performing and underperforming stocks successful the index.
The astir important nuance, however, is that the scale is market-cap weighted. That means the largest companies volition person the top interaction connected the S&P 500's performance. This is some a affirmative and a negative. On the affirmative side, a tiny fig of powerfully performing stocks tin pb the scale higher. On the antagonistic side, a tiny fig of poorly performing stocks tin origin the scale to decline. Which is wherefore you should see 2 S&P 500 scale alternatives earlier making a last decision.
Any concern that afloat tracks the S&P 500 scale is doing the aforesaid nonstop job. Because of this, investors should absorption connected the costs and benefits of the circumstantial concern asset. Exchange-traded funds person precise debased costs and tin beryllium traded passim the day, which gives them an borderline implicit communal funds that tin lone beryllium traded astatine the extremity of the day. As for the costs, Vanguard S&P 500 ETF's 0.03% disbursal ratio is arsenic adjacent to escaped arsenic you are apt to find connected Wall Street.

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