"Consistently buy an S&P 500 low-cost index fund," Warren Buffett told CNBC's On The Money in an interview recently. "I think it's the thing that makes the most sense practically all of the time."
And he suggests staying the course, despite market fluctuations.
As proof of the record of long term growth, the "Oracle of Omaha" remarked that the Dow Jones Industrial Average "went from 66 to 11,497 in one century," recalling the index's exact close at the end of 1999.
The question remains, which shares should investors buy exactly? Buffett says an index fund is a way to avoid the risk of picking individual stocks.
"The trick is not to pick the right company, the trick is to essentially buy all the big companies through the S&P 500 and to do it consistently and to do it in a very, very low cost way," he added.
Buffett points to the fee savings built into low-cost index funds. The largest such S&P 500 fund, Vanguard's 500 Index Fund, boasts expense ratios of less than a percentage point.
"Costs really matter in investments," said Buffett, who in the past has taken aim at costly funds. "If returns are going to be seven or eight percent and you're paying one percent for fees that makes an enormous difference in how much money you're going to have in retirement."
He added that investors can keep more of their retirement savings by cutting investment costs, by reducing management fees or commissions charged by financial advisors.
Source: Bloomberg Pro Terminal
Jr Trader Ivan Ivanov
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