Should you hold ETF long term?
Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) can serve a range of investment horizons, and they are flexible enough to be used for both short-term and long-term investment strategies. The choice of how long to stay invested in ETFs depends on your individual financial goals, risk tolerance, and investment strategy.
ETFs can be a great investment for long-term investors and those with shorter-term time horizons. They can be especially valuable to beginning investors. That's because they won't require the time, effort, and experience needed to research individual stocks.
Holding an ETF for longer than a year may get you a more favorable capital gains tax rate when you sell your investment.
Hold ETFs throughout your working life. Hold ETFs as long as you can, give compound interest time to work for you. Sell ETFs to fund your retirement. Don't sell ETFs during a market crash.
ETFs are subject to market fluctuation and the risks of their underlying investments. ETFs are subject to management fees and other expenses. Unlike mutual funds, ETF shares are bought and sold at market price, which may be higher or lower than their NAV, and are not individually redeemed from the fund.
In a volatile market, where the underlying asset experiences large daily swings, the compounding effect of daily returns can cause the leveraged ETF to lose value rapidly. This is because losses are magnified over time, and gains are not enough to offset the losses.
Leveraged ETFs use various financial instruments such as futures, options and swaps to achieve their leverage. These instruments have associated costs, including transaction costs, bid/ask spreads and management fees. These costs can eat into the returns of the ETF and contribute to its decay.
Say an investor has retired with a $1 million portfolio. In her first year of retirement, under the 4% rule, she should withdraw 4% of that portfolio, or $40,000 ($1 million x 0.04). For each subsequent year, she should adjust the withdrawal amount for inflation.
Q: How does the wash sale rule work? If you sell a security at a loss and buy the same or a substantially identical security within 30 calendar days before or after the sale, you won't be able to take a loss for that security on your current-year tax return.
For most standard, unleveraged ETFs that track an index, the maximum you can theoretically lose is the amount you invested, driving your investment value to zero. However, it's rare for broad-market ETFs to go to zero unless the entire market or sector it tracks collapses entirely.
What if I invested $1000 in S&P 500 10 years ago?
According to our calculations, a $1000 investment made in February 2014 would be worth $5,971.20, or a gain of 497.12%, as of February 5, 2024, and this return excludes dividends but includes price increases. Compare this to the S&P 500's rally of 178.17% and gold's return of 55.50% over the same time frame.
ETFs make a great pick for many investors who are starting out as well as for those who simply don't want to do all the legwork required to own individual stocks. Though it's possible to find the big winners among individual stocks, you have strong odds of doing well consistently with ETFs.
Whether you're a new investor just getting started or a seasoned pro looking for the best strategy to follow in 2024, the answer is probably the same: Seek out the best long-term ETFs to buy and hold and then sit back and enjoy the ride.
There are many ways an ETF can stray from its intended index. That tracking error can be a cost to investors. Indexes do not hold cash but ETFs do, so a certain amount of tracking error in an ETF is expected. Fund managers generally hold some cash in a fund to pay administrative expenses and management fees.
Low Liquidity
If an ETF is thinly traded, there can be problems getting out of the investment, depending on the size of your position relative to the average trading volume. The biggest sign of an illiquid investment is large spreads between the bid and the ask.
The biggest hassle of an ETF closure is it upends your investment timeline, and there's nothing you can do about it. You're forced to sell or take liquidation proceeds, which can create a tax burden or lock in investment losses.
Too much diversification can dilute performance
Adding new ETFs to a portfolio that includes this Energy ETF would decrease its performance. Since the allocation to the Energy ETF will naturally decrease - and so will its contribution to the total portfolio return.
The majority of individual investors should, however, seek to hold 5 to 10 ETFs that are diverse in terms of asset classes, regions, and other factors. Investors can diversify their investment portfolio across several industries and asset classes while maintaining simplicity by buying 5 to 10 ETFs.
Longer life span:
On average, funds that close tend to do so within three to five years of their inception. To determine a fund's age, log in to the ETF screener and select Inception Date under Basic Criteria, then select a time frame.
The price of an ETF share generally stays very close to NAV but if the share price is below the NAV, then the ETF is said to be trading at a discount. Conversely, if the ETF share price is more expensive than NAV, the ETF is said to be trading at a premium.
What happens to my ETF if Vanguard fails?
In theory, if Vanguard went bankrupt, your assets within the ETF should be safe, as they're technically yours held in trust by Vanguard. So if Vanguard collapsed, then what would likely happen would be that another manager would take over the ETF, or the assets would be sold off and you'd be paid out.
A single ETF can contain dozens or hundreds of different stocks, or bonds or almost anything else considered an investable asset. Since ETFs are more diversified, they tend to have a lower risk level than stocks.
Generally speaking, fewer than 10 ETFs are likely enough to diversify your portfolio, but this will vary depending on your financial goals, ranging from retirement savings to income generation.
One simple rule of thumb I tend to adopt is going by the 4-3-2-1 ratios to budgeting. This ratio allocates 40% of your income towards expenses, 30% towards housing, 20% towards savings and investments and 10% towards insurance.
Under the Investment Company Act, private investment funds (e.g. hedge funds) are generally prohibited from acquiring more than 3% of an ETF's shares (the 3% Limit).
