Here is some really good news for you. The Skilled Investor has published an article about lower cost S&P 500 index mutual funds that you can read, entitled: Low Cost S&P 500 Index Mutual Funds. The Standard & Poors 500 stock index is the most common equity index fund benchmark in the U.S. The S and P 500 tracks about 75% of publicly traded U.S. equity market asset value.
Below you will also find our Fund Authority Score summary for Vanguard 500 Index mutual Fund Admiral Shares. From a lower cost standpoint, these VFIAX Admiral Shares are on the list as one of these best choices among all S&P500 index mutual funds.
The dominant issue in choosing among passively managed index mutual funds and ETF funds benchmarked against the S & P 500 is that securities industry management and trading fees are all over the map from reasonably low to shockingly high.
Vanguard Admiral Shares are not for the individual investor with limited funds, because they require an initial investment of $100,000 to get a rock-bottom annual expense ratio of .09%. For those who are starting their investment program or those who currently have more modest means, the Vanguard Investor Shares (VFINX) are an alternative. VFINX shares have a low annual expense ratio of .18% and a minimum initial deposit requirement of $3,000 in a taxable account.
Alternatively, an investor might choose one of the other funds listed in our Low Cost S&P 500 Index Mutual Funds article. Nevertheless, you should not be daunted by the $100,000 investment requirement. With a regular monthly investment program, over the years your assets could grow until you qualify for the lower expense ratio of VFIAX Admiral Shares. Furthermore, if you already have assets in Vanguard accounts that you have held for at least 10 years, then $50,000 is the minimum conversion limit.
The diversified investment fund strategy of the Vanguard 500 Index Fund
According to Vanguard’s website, the investment strategy of the Vanguard 500 Index mutual fund is to use a passive management or index “investment approach designed to track the performance of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, a widely recognized benchmark of U.S. stock market performance that is dominated by the stocks of large U.S. companies. The fund attempts to replicate the target index by investing all, or substantially all, of its assets in the stocks that make up the index, [...]