How to go about buying an Index Fund

Dude read the prospectus to get the expense ratio and fees.

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Call Tradeking and ask the fee for buying. I pay Scott 17 for mutual funds, 7 for stocks and ETFs.

Also, try to find the equivalent ETF to lower cost. I just did that with a Vanguard ETF for short term bond rather than their mutual fund.

Check msn money website for the annual expense fees

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TradeKing has no fee if you buy a loaded fund (Class A Shares), you will still pay the load from the fund family, between 2-6%. (index funds are no load, but just giving you the info)
$9.95 for buy and sell of No-Load fund. So you are better off just going through Vanguard to buy Index Funds. If you're gonna buy an Index ETF, also go through Vanguard, it's just much less expensive long term.

For the ETF's it's $4.95/trade just like a stock. I would only buy Sector Specific, Inverse, or Leveraged ETFs from tradeking. (I don't buy these products often, they're extremely risky and would strongly advise against them if you aren't a seasoned investor)


***WORD OF CAUTION***

If you're gonna buy an ETF, resist the temptation to trade it like a stock. I like ETF's because of the low expenses and liquidity, especially if you plan on investing a large sum of money all at once. But a lot of investors would have been much better off just buying an index mutual fund and avoiding the commission charges from buying shares every month as well as the risk of buying too high intraday.

I opened my Roth with Vanguard and have a couple of their funds in that portfolio. Just read the prospectus.

There are also index funds like SPDR and QQQQ that you can buy through your regular stock broker.