Originally Posted by tom cotter
If you find a zero fee index fund let me know. Most of the fund companies pushing these things like to get paid.
Granted, I'm in Canada, but my local financial institution has several index funds available. Sure, I have to ask for them, and they often suggest managed funds, but as long as they're getting my money, they're usually pretty happy to do what I want.
Originally Posted by tom cotter
Using just one fund, show me it didn't outperform the S&P500 long term. Symbol AWSHX. Show me how this fund has not outperformed the S&P 500 long term? For a time frame let's use the life of the fund. That's going back to 1952. That should be an arbitrary time period we can agree on.
The problem with this is that you've picked a fund that's still here. How about picking a random fund that was available in 1952, and seeing how it did. Or averaging the performance from all the funds available in 1952. It's the classic "all death row inmates drank milk as children" fallacy, or, to bring it back to cycling, one of the reasons people think they're safe without helmets is because you hear a lot of stories from people who rode as kids without helmets and were just fine, but no stories from people who rode as kids without helmets and were killed. (Not to say that you are or aren't safe without a helmet, just that there's a bias in the reporting.)