Has anyone got rich from ETFs?
In a nutshell: Yes, ETFs alone are enough to make you rich. With just one investment, you can capture the growth of the overall stock market or a certain segment of it. For example, you can find ETFs that focus on pretty much any industry, investment theme, or region of the globe.
Absolutely. ETFs can be one of the most effective strategies to reach this financial goal. The reason behind this is compound growth, which is simply the process of your investments earning returns and then those returns earning even more over time.
S&P 500 ETFs are a popular choice even for billionaire investors. The index has a long track record of returning an average of 9% a year. Index funds may hold additional appeal during times of uncertainty.
You can make money from ETFs by trading them. And some ETFs pay out the money the ETF makes to investors. These payments are called distributions.
The average ETF return will vary depending on each fund's strategy and goals. However, broad market ETFs generate an average return between 7-10%. You can invest in ETFs that track specific types of stocks, such as high dividend-paying companies.
Since its inception in September 2010, the ETF has provided an average annual return of 13.91%. If you invested $3,600 per year over 40 years with that return less expenses, you'd wind up with over $5.3 million. It would only take an annual investment of $680 for your money to grow to $1 million.
In fact, a number of billionaire investors count S&P 500 index funds among their top holdings. Among those are Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, Dalio's Bridgewater, and Griffin's Citadel.
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Owns 2 ETFs: SPY and VOO
Regardless of what Berkshire buys or sells, one of the cheapest ways for an investor to diversify is with an exchange-traded fund. If you want to buy what Buffett has at Berkshire, he has two ETFs listed on the 13F: SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY. Vanguard S&P 500 ETF VOO.
Warren Buffett has long recommended the S&P 500 index fund and ETF, and through his holding company Berkshire Hathaway, he also owns two of these types of investments: the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO -0.13%) and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY -0.19%).
| Symbol | Name | Dividend Yield |
|---|---|---|
| NIKL | Sprott Nickel Miners ETF | 21.38% |
| MAXI | Simplify Bitcoin Strategy PLUS Income ETF | 20.46% |
| TLTW | iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond BuyWrite Strategy ETF | 19.46% |
| AIYY | YieldMax AI Option Income Strategy ETF | 18.55% |
What is the downside to an ETF?
At any given time, the spread on an ETF may be high, and the market price of shares may not correspond to the intraday value of the underlying securities. Those are not good times to transact business. Make sure you know what an ETF's current intraday value is as well as the market price of the shares before you buy.
Typically either quarterly or monthly.
Investors who hold ETFs that are not liquid may have trouble selling them at the price they want or in the time frame necessary. Moreover, if an ETF invests in illiquid shares or uses leverage, the market price of the ETF may fall dramatically below the fund's NAV.
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.
Assuming an average annual return rate of about 10% (a typical historical average), a $10,000 investment in the S&P 500 could potentially grow to approximately $25,937 over 10 years.
$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.
Imagine you wish to amass $3000 monthly from your investments, amounting to $36,000 annually. If you park your funds in a savings account offering a 2% annual interest rate, you'd need to inject roughly $1.8 million into the account.
An exchange-traded fund (ETF) includes a basket of securities and trades on an exchange. If the stocks owned by the fund pay dividends, the money is passed along to the investor. Most ETFs pay these dividends quarterly on a pro-rata basis, where payments are based on the number of shares the investor owns.
Holding too many ETFs in your portfolio introduces inefficiencies that in the long term will have a detrimental impact on the risk/reward profile of your portfolio.
In 2007, Buffett bet a million dollars that over the course of a decade, a simple S&P 500 index fund would outperform a basket of hand-picked hedge funds. He picked the Vanguard 500 Index Fund Admiral Shares (VFIAX). Hedge fund manager Ted Seides from Protégé Partners accepted the bet and picked five funds-of-funds.
Where do the richest people invest?
| Rank | Asset | Average Proportion of Total Wealth |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Primary and Secondary Homes | 32% |
| 2 | Equities | 18% |
| 3 | Commercial Property | 14% |
| 4 | Bonds | 12% |
Ramsey suggested that if you do want to engage in passive investing, you're better off doing it with an index mutual fund than with an ETF that tracks a market or financial index. His reasoning: Mutual funds are meant to be invested in over the long term, while ETFs trade daily.
Warren Buffett has long recommended the S&P 500 index fund and ETF, and through his holding company Berkshire Hathaway, he also owns two of these types of investments: the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEMKT: SPY).
Buffett's favorite ETF
There are only two ETFs in Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE: BRK. A) (NYSE: BRK.B) portfolio: the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEMKT: SPY) and the Vanguard 500 Index Fund ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO).
Like any business, even low-cost ETFs need to generate revenue to cover their costs. Like any business, even low-cost ETFs need to generate revenue to cover their costs. Plenty of ETFs fail to garner the assets necessary to cover these costs and, consequently, ETF closures happen regularly.
