Do index funds build wealth?
Index funds are a low-cost, easy way to build wealth. Here's how to invest in index funds.
One of the main reasons is the high return of index funds over the years. Other reasons include the potential for wealth creation in the long run, the ability to get an experienced and qualified fund manager to manage your funds at an affordable cost, and the ease of investing.
| Best Index Funds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Fund Name | Minimum Investment | 10-Yr Avg. Annual Return |
| Fidelity 500 Index Fund (FXAIX) | $0 | 12.69% |
| Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Admiral (VTSAX) | $3,000 | 12.06% |
| Schwab S&P 500 Index Fund (SWPPX) | $0 | 12.73% |
As a result, the broad-market index has an excellent historical track record of generating wealth. Over its history, the S&P 500 has generated an average annual return of 9%, including re-invested dividends. At that rate, even a middle-class income is enough to become a millionaire over time.
Index funds are popular with investors because they promise ownership of a wide variety of stocks, greater diversification and lower risk – usually all at a low cost. That's why many investors, especially beginners, find index funds to be superior investments to individual stocks.
It's easy to see why S&P 500 index funds are so popular with the billionaire investor class. The S&P 500 has a long history of delivering strong returns, averaging 9% annually over 150 years. In other words, it's hard to find an investment with a better track record than the U.S. stock market.
Warren Buffett made his fortune by investing in individual companies with great long-term advantages. But his top recommendation for anyone is to buy a simple index fund. Buffett's recommendation underscores the importance of diversification.
According to our calculations, a $1000 investment made in February 2014 would be worth $5,971.20, or a gain of 497.12%, as of February 5, 2024, and this return excludes dividends but includes price increases. Compare this to the S&P 500's rally of 178.17% and gold's return of 55.50% over the same time frame.
In 1980, had you invested a mere $1,000 in what went on to become the top-performing stock of S&P 500, then you would be sitting on a cool $1.2 million today.
To make $1,000 per month on T-bills, you would need to invest $240,000 at a 5% rate. This is a solid return — and probably one of the safest investments available today. But do you have $240,000 sitting around? That's the hard part.
How much was $10,000 invested in the S&P 500 in 2000?
Think About This: $10,000 invested in the S&P 500 at the beginning of 2000 would have grown to $32,527 over 20 years — an average return of 6.07% per year.
Let's say you want to become a millionaire in five years. If you're starting from scratch, online millionaire calculators (which return a variety of results given the same inputs) estimate that you'll need to save anywhere from $13,000 to $15,500 a month and invest it wisely enough to earn an average of 10% a year.
Some experts recommend withdrawing 4% each year from your retirement accounts. To generate $500 a month, you might need to build your investments to $150,000. Taking out 4% each year would amount to $6,000, which comes to $500 a month.
While indexes may be low cost and diversified, they prevent seizing opportunities elsewhere. Moreover, indexes do not provide protection from market corrections and crashes when an investor has a lot of exposure to stock index funds.
While there are few certainties in the financial world, there's virtually no chance that an index fund will ever lose all of its value. One reason for this is that most index funds are highly diversified. They buy and hold identical weights of each stock in an index, such as the S&P 500.
Are Index Funds Safe Long-Term? The short answer is yes: index funds are still safe in the long term. Only the right index funds are safe. There may be some on the market that you want to avoid.
The short answer is a resounding yes. Let's take a look at why this is. While past investment performance doesn't guarantee future results, the return of S&P 500 index funds has been about 9% to 10% annualized per year over long periods, depending on the exact timeframe you're looking at.
Buffett's thinking here is straightforward. Most non-professional investors (and even many professional stock-pickers) have very little chance of outperforming the market. But index fund investors get exposure to the entire U.S. market and can benefit from its historical upward trajectory — and for cheap.
| Rank | Asset | Average Proportion of Total Wealth |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Primary and Secondary Homes | 32% |
| 2 | Equities | 18% |
| 3 | Commercial Property | 14% |
| 4 | Bonds | 12% |
Warren Buffet's 2013 letter explains the 90/10 rule—put 90% of assets in S&P 500 index funds and the other 10% in short-term government bonds.
Is it OK to only invest in index funds?
If you're new to investing, you can absolutely start off by buying index funds alone as you learn more about how to choose the right stocks. But as your knowledge grows, you may want to branch out and add different companies to your portfolio that you feel align well with your personal risk tolerance and goals.
The S&P 500 is all US-domiciled companies that over the last ~40 years have accounted for ~50% of all global stocks. By just owning the S&P 500 you miss out on almost half of the global opportunity set which is another ~10,000 public companies.
| Discount Rate | Present Value | Future Value |
|---|---|---|
| 6% | $1,000 | $3,207.14 |
| 7% | $1,000 | $3,869.68 |
| 8% | $1,000 | $4,660.96 |
| 9% | $1,000 | $5,604.41 |
A $10,000 investment in Tesla back in April of 2014 would now be worth roughly $121,460 right now -- and that's even factoring in the stock's pullback this year.
How a monthly investment of $300 could grow into $618,900. The S&P 500 returned 164% over the last decade, or about 10% per year. At that pace, $300 invested monthly in an S&P 500 index fund would be worth about $60,000 in one decade, $215,400 in two decades, and $618,900 in three decades.
