Free stock market index fund vanguard

RetireMentors features retirement advice from financial professionals, not staff journalists. Paul Merriman is committed to educating people of all ages to get the most from their retirement investments.

Founder of Merriman Wealth Management, a Seattle-based investment advisory firm, he is the author of numerous books on investing: How to Select the Best and Get the Most from Your Financial Advisor " and " Investment Decisions Guaranteed to Change Your Financial Future.

He is president of The Merriman Financial Education Foundation and all profits from the sale of his books are used to advance financial literacy. His recommendations for portfolios of Vanguard funds, Fidelity funds and ETFs, podcasts, articles and books are available at paulmerriman. Follow Paul on Twitter SavvyInvestorPM. And there's plenty to like about Vanguard Total Stock Market Index VTSMX, Low expenses, massive diversification, low turnover and of course — no sales load.

But this fund falls far short of its " total market " title. In fact, the fund gives investors only a small part of what it takes to diversify a portfolio into the best asset classes.

My goal is to help investors take steps that are likely to increase their returns without taking undue risk.

There is absolutely no evidence that owning the Total Stock Market Index Fund TSMI will accomplish that goal. In fact, I think the opposite is true: Relying on this fund is likely to prevent investors from retiring when they otherwise could do so. Vanguard has earned a lot of credibility among investors through its low costs and broad array of index funds.

But for a reason or reasons I don't understand, the company seems to have a blind spot when it comes to diversification. Vanguard has basically taken the position that the benefits available from broad diversification aren't worth the trouble. The past 80 years of stock market history makes a compelling case that full diversification can add one or two percentage points to the annual return of a portfolio.

Worriers Welcome. Direxion Inverse and Leveraged ETFs | Direxion

Even if the difference is only 0. Diversification, when done properly, can literally double the money an investor can spend in retirement and double the amount that investor can leave to his or her heirs. Doing this might take an extra hour every year. That's not worth it? On the contrary, those could be the most profitable hours that most investors ever spend. So back to the Total Stock Market Index. Large Cap Value, U.

Small Cap and U. Nice try, but, where's the beef? The long-term return is still 9.

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5 Reasons to Buy the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF -- The Motley Fool

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