{"id":1657,"date":"2021-08-15T14:56:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-15T09:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jamawealth.com\/blog\/?p=1657"},"modified":"2026-09-27T05:04:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T05:04:29","slug":"how-to-choose-the-right-index-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maxiomwealth.com\/blog\/how-to-choose-the-right-index-fund\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Select The Best Index Fund For Your Portfolio?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What are Index Funds<\/h3>\n<p>These are mutual funds that track one of the market indexes like Sensex or Nifty. The fund manager, here, does not get to select the stocks the fund will invest in. The fund portfolio will mirror the index that it tracks as accurately as possible.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>You may also find this useful: <a href=\"https:\/\/maxiomwealth.com\/blog\/asset-allocation-basics-split-monthly-savings\/\">What Is Asset Allocation and How Should You Split Savings<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Sensex is an index derived from 30 most actively traded stocks on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Similarly Nifty is the benchmark index of the 50 most actively traded stocks on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). Now the fund \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/groww.in\/mutual-funds\/hdfc-index-fund-sensex-plan-direct\">HDFC Index Fund-S&amp;P BSE Sensex<\/a>\u201d tracks Sensex where as \u201cHDFC Index Fund-NIFTY 50 Plan\u201d tracks the Nifty 50.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How are Index Funds Different from ETFs<\/h3>\n<p>The main difference between index mutual funds and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) is that index funds track market movements via Net Asset Value (NAV) which updates only at end of trading day. Whereas, ETFs track underlying asset value movement on the fly, throughout the day.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If we compare mutual funds vs index funds vs ETFs, mutual funds and index funds are fundamentally the same except that index funds do not have the flexibility to pick stocks and their weightage in its portfolio. ETFs have an advantage in short term investments over indexed funds. But in the long term, they are almost the same.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Index funds are popular with long term investors with a low risk investment. Especially for people looking for some passive income ideas, index funds are a good choice since they provide good returns with diversified risk.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How does an index fund work\u00a0<\/h3>\n<p>These funds mimic the composition of the chosen index. They are passively managed funds, which means there is no stock research, risk mitigation, diversification that needs to be done by the fund manager. All of this is automatically taken care of by the index. The objective is to depend on the returns of the index over a long period without buying and selling securities very often.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How are Index funds Different from Actively Managed Funds<\/h3>\n<p>An index fund is a passively managed fund for the reasons mentioned above. Opposite to this, actively managed mutual funds often seeks alpha by doing more frequent purchases and sales, re balances to beat the market returns.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What are the Types of Index Funds<\/h3>\n<p>Primarily there are 2 types of index funds:&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Equity<\/li>\n<li>Debt<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The funds that invest in stocks based on an index composition and weightage, is called an equity index fund. As opposed to this, a debt index fund tracks an index composed of Corporate Debt, Government Securities, Treasury bills, State Development Loans.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The best equity index fu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What are Index Funds These are mutual funds that track one of the market indexes like Sensex or Nifty. The fund manager, here, does not get to select the stocks the fund will invest in. The fund portfolio will mirror the index that it tracks as accurately as possible.&nbsp; You may also find this useful:&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/maxiomwealth.com\/blog\/how-to-choose-the-right-index-fund\/\" class=\"\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">How To Select The Best Index Fund For Your Portfolio?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5129,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[204,348,671,779,819],"class_list":["post-1657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing-fundamentals-mutual-funds-guide","tag-etfs","tag-index-funds-direct-equity-jama-wealth","tag-share-market-indexes","tag-types-of-index-funds","tag-wealth-manager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxiomwealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxiomwealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxiomwealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxiomwealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxiomwealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1657"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/maxiomwealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7507,"href":"https:\/\/maxiomwealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657\/revisions\/7507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxiomwealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxiomwealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxiomwealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxiomwealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}