I love the book "The Simple Path To Wealth" because it lays out this investment strategy:
1) Find a whole market index fund with a low expense ratio. It says VTSAX, but I'm in FZROX because I use Fidelity.
2) Invest in it.
3) Done.
You might hear some people talk about S&P 500 funds. Good for them. I brought up a comparison chart between two fidelity funds with a lot of history. FSKAX is an S&P 500 fund. FXAIX is an index fund. Here is the difference between their performance over 11 years.
The end result? 229.63% vs 221.91%. Let's say you had $10,000 11 years ago. You'd have...
$22,963 if you'd invested in FXAIX (S&P 500)
$22,191 if you'd invested in FSKAX (whole market)
That is a $772 difference - $70 a year. And that's just a snapshot on the one day I picked. Since these funds both fluctuate and go up and down themselves, either one could easily change by 4% on a given day and it doesn't make a huge difference long term.
So my conclusion is that it doesn't matter a lot. Go with your gut and pick one. Both end amounts are a LOT higher than if you'd just left your $10,000 sitting in a bank account with little to no interest earned!
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