PRACTICAL PORTFOLIO: Five Ways to Slice the S&P 500

摘要

What started as a plain-vanilla fund concept now comes in many flavors. NOT SO LONG AGO, S&P 500 index funds came in one flavor: They simply tracked Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. Now, the fund industry offers almost as many types of S&P 500 index funds as Baskin Robbins does ice cream. You may be best off with the plain-vanilla version, but some other variations might be worth a taste test. Prices and returns are as of September 6.