Can I invest in an individual stock or fund (ie., S&P 500 index or Apple)? (2024)

FAQs

Can I invest in an individual stock or fund (ie., S&P 500 index or Apple)? ›

The S&P 500 is an index that tracks the 500 largest companies in the U.S. by market capitalization. You can't directly invest in the index itself, but you can buy individual stocks of S&P 500 companies, or buy a S&P 500 index fund through a mutual fund or ETF.

Once you've opened an investment account, you'll need to decide: Do you want to invest in individual stocks included in the S&P 500 or a fund that is representative of most of the index? Investing in an S&P 500 fund can instantly diversify your portfolio and is generally considered less risky.

You can complement the ETFs or mutual funds in your portfolio with specific stocks and bonds.

Investing legend Warren Buffett has said that the average investor need only invest in a broad stock market index to be properly diversified. However, you can easily customize your fund mix if you want additional exposure to specific markets in your portfolio.

Over the past decade, you would have done even better, as the S&P 500 posted an average annual return of a whopping 12.68%. Here's how much your account balance would be now if you were invested over the past 10 years: $1,000 would grow to $3,300. $5,000 would grow to $16,498.

Meanwhile, if you only invest in S&P 500 ETFs, you won't beat the broad market. Rather, you can expect your portfolio's performance to be in line with that of the broad market. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. See, over the past 50 years, the S&P 500 has delivered an average annual 10% return.

Because of their wide array of holdings, ETFs provide the benefits of diversification, including lower risk and less volatility, which often makes a fund safer to own than an individual stock. An ETF's return depends on what it's invested in. An ETF's return is the weighted average of all its holdings.

Picking individual stocks can lead to more upside but requires that you monitor your portfolio more often. Most funds have several dead stocks that aren't doing much for total returns. Investing in individual stocks can help investors avoid these duds.

The risks are too great with individual stocks

Financial pros like Benz urge investors to build broadly diversified portfolios for a reason: While the overall historical trajectory of the stock market has trended upward, any individual stock has a chance to decline sharply in price and destroy your portfolio's returns.

Why don't people just invest in index funds? ›

Indexes are set portfolios. If an investor buys an index fund, they have no control over the individual holdings in the portfolio. You may have specific companies that you like and want to own, such as a favorite bank or food company that you have researched and want to buy.

Lower risk: Because they're diversified, investing in an index fund is lower risk than owning a few individual stocks. That doesn't mean you can't lose money or that they're as safe as a CD, for example, but the index will usually fluctuate a lot less than an individual stock.

However, while many of them are regarded as financial wizards, often their investments are utterly pedestrian. In fact, a number of billionaire investors count S&P 500 index funds among their top holdings.

VOO typically provides a higher dividend yield compared to SPY. This aspect is particularly attractive to investors who prioritize income generation from their investments.

Any stock fund manager can top the benchmark S&P 500 in any given year. But the best funds have a proven investment strategy and performance record.

You can't go wrong with either the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF or the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF. Both offer very low expense ratios and turnover rates, and the difference in their tracking errors is negligible. The overlap in their holdings ensures that you'll get very similar returns going forward.

Don't simply look at the S&P 500 Index

And for a diversified portfolio that might include international investments and other asset classes such as bonds, commodities and cash, it provides little guidance. An appropriate benchmark should reflect your portfolio's risk level and allocation.

Investing products such as stocks can have much higher returns than savings accounts and CDs. Over time, the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index (S&P 500), has returned about 10 percent annually, though the return can fluctuate greatly in any given year. Investing products are generally very liquid.

Assuming an average annual return rate of about 10% (a typical historical average), a $10,000 investment in the S&P 500 could potentially grow to approximately $25,937 over 10 years.