One way that investors can obtain for themselves nearly the full returns of the market is to invest in an “index fund.” This is a mutual fund that does not attempt to pick and choose stocks of individual companies based upon the research of the mu- tual fund managers or to try to time the market’s movements. An index fund seeks to equal the returns of a major stock in- dex, such as the Standard & Poor’s 500, the Wilshire 5000, or the Russell 3000. Through computer programmed buying and selling, an index fund tracks the holdings of a chosen index, and.
