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Good topic, I recently switched from a full service broker how had done poorly for me for 13 years
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Good move brokers prey on the uninformed.
everyone investing their own money needs to be informed and learn the ropes.
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I'm selecting funds that don't mimic each other, some are in real estate (financials), some in industry, healtcare, home building, electronics, transporation, etc
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Thats called diversification
More commonly its broken down
stocks/bonds/cash
stocks are further subcatagorized as US or foreign
US stocks are then divided into a 3x3 matrix
LV LB LG
MV MB MG
SV SB SG
w/ diversifier's in real estate, convertibles etc.
Just for an example any of the S&P Index Funds are LB(large blend which means they have some large value and some large growth stocks in them), a good expense ratio for them is ~.15% Fidelity is slightly lower Vangard is slightly higher. For the last few years value stocks have been the place to be, but that is cyclical and many pundits feel that growth will out perform over the next few years.
Having a solid core of very low cost index funds is an excellent way to start and give s you the incentive to learn more.
There are lots of different Indexes don't but just 1.
For pure LC growth An expense ratio of >1% is good the smaller caps will be slightly more expensive to own but are needed for diversification.
You can also buy ETFs which are even lower in cost and trade like stocks but are just baskets of stocks(or bonds) that mimic a given index.
Please do not ever pay a commision for a mutual fund there is absolutely no reason to do so.
There are great no load and low fee funds out there in every catagory you could possibly want.