I'm a Shareholder!!

Well one day before I turn 8 months old I am officially a shareholder in the stock market. How exciting!! Not only that I own part of Exxon Mobile, General Electric, PFizer, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Intel, CitiGroup, and Bank of America just to name a few.

Now hold on in my last post I told you I only had $250 to invest, how could I possibly own shares in all of the above companies with only a measly $250 to invest. Well you might have guess it, I invested in a mutual fund, and just not any kind of mutual fund....an index fund.

I invested in VTI which is a Vanguard EFT (Exchange Traded Fund) that tracks the performance of all the U.S . common stocks traded regularly on the NYSE, AMEX, or OTC markets. I actually own a small share of 1,300 of the largest stocks on the US stock exchanges. This means that I will come very close to matching the performance of the stock market as a whole (which has been roughly 10% a year over the last century), which is much better than my ING savings account or my Savings bonds. We'll see how things work out but I will likely move more of my money over time into the stock market as I am pretty much guaranteed superior returns.