Are Your Funds Keeping You From Becoming a Millionaire?

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The stock market is basically a huge worldwide Ponzi scheme, with those who bought earlier being the winners, and those who bought late, the losers. Stock market doesn't create wealth, in fact it destroys it due to commissions and taxes on profits. The only ones making money in the markets are the wall street insiders, brokers and US government. Everybody else is a loser, including individuals, mutual funds, pension funds, etc etc, all are net losers. The stock market needs fresh capital constantly in order to sustain the "negative sum" game. The reality is, it's just a huge worldwide scam, and the crash will be coming.

Yomamma of WA 11:16PM August 11, 2010

If the study doesn't include the cost of acquiring the ETF shares via brokerage commissions, of what value is it? Close to nil, and very, very silly.
I'm honestly astonished that someone would submit such a study and declare it is a serious comparison of ETFs and MFs. MF fees include the cost of commissions. ETF fees do not, so, obviously, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to say ETF fees will be lower, but the cost of obtaining ETF fees is as high or higher.

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Ashley of NY 1:50PM April 17, 2010

"With an index fund you are all but guaranteed an above average return in the long run."
No, with an index fund you have a reasonable chance of having an AVERAGE return in the long run--that's what indexing does, gives you about the same return as the general market.
In order for investors to use ETF's instead of mutual funds they need brokerage accounts and the ability to study and choose the products. Many investors don't have the time or ability to do that, which is why mutual funds exist. An article in WSJ a couple months ago pointed out that most investors have unrealistic expectations of market returns and chase after them with various products which are more suited for buy-and-hold investing for average returns...

Rich of CT 11:38AM April 09, 2010

"Certainly, though, there are a number of active funds that consistently trounce their ETF counterparts"
And certainly the number of these funds is exactly what you would expect from chance. There is no fund you could point at which will have a better than 50% chance of beating an index over any future time period.
"So when it comes down to it, investors should still be asking themselves the same old questions: Can actively managed funds add value?... The answers to these questions, of course, are highly personal, and there’s no one-size-fits-all equation."
This is silly, every investor wants the same thing, more money. With an index fund you are all but guaranteed an above average return in the long run. Study after study has shown that the extra fees from actively managed fund are not made up for by increased returns. There really is no good reason to put money into any fund with over 1% fees. If you insist on gambling with your money there are many low fee options to bet on.

Glmory of CA 12:42AM April 07, 2010