This is the easy, cheap and non-frightening way to invest in the stock market….and it works! Index-tracking funds (also known as ‘trackers’) are a no-fuss way of putting your money into the stock market (for the long-term remember) and making decent money over time. Here’s what they are and how you can start investing today.

• What exactly are they?
• Will I make or lose money?
• How do I invest?
• We like M & G for its range of funds and low charges. It’s also worth looking at National Friendly, Scottish Widows or Virgin.
• Get it wrapped in an ISA or put it into your own ISA wrapper from Hargreaves Lansdown

What are index-tracking funds?

Tracker funds ‘track’ a particular stock market index (i.e. defined group of companies such as the largest 100) by investing some of your money in every single company in that index. This means that as the index goes up or down (depending on how the shares of each of the companies in the index do each day), your investment goes up and down with it.

There are various ‘indices’ in Britain and around the world that are ‘tracked’ by tracker funds. For example, the ‘FTSE 100′ (the index you keep hearing about in the news) is made up of the 100 biggest companies that have shares available to buy and sell on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) that’s where those shares are ‘listed’.

When a company gets ‘listed’ on a stock market it means that at least part of it has been sold to the public (i.e. you, me or anyone else who wants to buy those shares) rather than being privately owned.

In other words, lots of people can own a little bit of each company by buying one or more bits/‘shares’ of it. Once a company is listed it can only become a ‘private’ company again if it buys back all of the shares or if another company or group of people does so and thereby ‘de-lists’ the company – this is what Richard Branson did with his company, Virgin.

If you are considering investing in a tracker fund or two, another index you should be familiar with is the FTSE All-Share, which represents the vast majority of companies that are listed on the London Stock Exchange (over 700 of them).

There’s also nothing to stop you investing in a fund that tracks one of the many other indices, such as AIM (Alternative listings for smaller companies  in the UK), the Dow Jones or the Nasdaq in America, the Nikkei in Japan, the Hang Seng in Hong Kong or the DAX in Germany – in fact I suggest that in time you should spread your money across different countries and sectors – but to start with, stick to British funds where you know where you are and you have easier access to information about them.

The different types of indices to track

There are three main British indices that you can choose to ‘track’. The FTSE 100 and the FTSE All-Share tend to perform pretty similarly, but the third, the FTSE 250, goes up and down a little more because it’s made up of middle-sized companies, for which the prices can be a bit more volatile.

The FTSE 100 – This measures the largest 100 companies in the UK by value. One current example is BP, which is UK-based, but operates internationally.

The top 100 companies represent about 80% of the value of the whole of the London-based market (the FTSE All-Share), so you can get a pretty good idea of what the stock market as a whole is doing from how these top 100 companies are performing. This is why they report on the FTSE 100 in the news – if the FTSE 100 is up a few points then the overall feeling is positive – companies are generally perceived to be doing well.

The FTSE 250 – The next 250 biggest companies in size are known as the FTSE 250 – in other words, the companies ranked 101 to 350 in the market. Companies in this index are generally known as the ‘mid-caps’, meaning that they have a capitalisation (what they would be worth if you sold them) that is somewhere in the middle between the FTSE 100 and all the other tiddly little companies that are listed.

Interestingly, many of the traditionally ‘British’ companies, like manufacturers and house-building companies, are often found in the FTSE 250. For that reason, investors often choose to track this index if they believe the next few years will be bright for the British economy. They’ll look for signals such as a falling unemployment rate, which means more people are holding down jobs and able to spend more on housing, travel and shopping.

The FTSE All-Share – This measures how the major part of the companies (around 700 of them) listed on the London Stock Exchange is doing. This includes each one that sells shares to the public, from the very big household names like BT to the tiddlers, such as estate agents. Although it includes all of the publicly listed companies in the country it moves up and down in a similar way to the FTSE 100 because the first hundred companies in the index account for the vast majority of the wealth of the whole lot.

Will I make money?

Trackers charge less than the managed funds because they’re run by computers which, unlike your average City fund manager, don’t expect a new Porsche Boxter and a holiday in the Bahamas every year. In fact, you shouldn’t pay more than 1% a year in management fees for your index-tracker, and some charge less than 0.5%. Index-tracking funds are relatively easy to invest in. The only hard part is choosing which one.

How do I invest in a tracker fund?

It’s very simple to invest in an index-tracking fund. The one we like best (and Jasmine has invested in it a few times) is the Legal & General tracker fund. They are one of the biggest providers of index-tracking investments in the UK, managing £180 billion as at 30 June 2009. They’re responsible for investing £287 billion worldwide (as at 30 June 2009) on behalf of investors, policyholders and shareholders. Also, they’re one of the very few financial companies actively to promote tracker funds and they offer their funds pre-wrapped in an ISA so it makes ISA-investing nice and easy too.

It’s easy to apply. Go on the site and click on ‘ISAs’ on the left-hand side. Then click on ‘Index-tracking ISA’. Click on the tab that says ‘funds and charges’ and you will see a list of their trackers. Pick one you like (perhaps a FTSE 100 or a Pacific Index – be adventurous!) and then start the application process. You will need your National Insurance number and your bank details but otherwise it’s pretty straightforward.

National Friendly’s ISA application process is nice and straightforward as well. Simply click on the ‘Apply Now’ button, fill in your personal details and select which ISA you want. That’s pretty much it!

It’s important to remember that whichever fund you invest in, it’s a gamble as to whether you will make a good return or not. However as we said, as long as you are in it for the long run you should make some money on your investment.

ISA allowance

You also get an option to have some or all of your investment wrapped in a tax-saving ISA. This is a good thing to do if you haven’t already used up your stocks and shares ISA allowance (£10,200 per tax year). Many companies that provide tracker funds also offer them pre-wrapped in an ISA which makes it easier. Legal & General, for example, offer their impressive fund already wrapped in an ISA.

If you don’t want to put all your money into a stocks and shares-based ISA you can just put some in a mini shares ISA and the rest in a mini cash ISA (remember you cannot put more than £5,100 in a cash ISA). You will also be asked if you would like to put in just a lump sum or make regular monthly investments.

It depends on your circumstances what you do here. If you have a lump of money to invest now then go ahead and put it in. But if you don’t, and you think you can afford a certain amount each month, then set that up as a direct debit from your bank account.

You could also set up an ISA wrapper of your own into which you put a tracker fund and some other investments, depending on what interests you. You can do this through Hargreaves Lansdown who provide an ISA wrapper into which you can put a tracker, individual shares or other funds.

Get a FREE investor’s guide to ISAs – click here

Sitting on your investment

Once you finish the application you will be sent paper forms to fill in and you will probably need to show that you are who you say you are (annoying anti-money-laundering legislation insists on that). That will mean sending some household bills or similar, which they will send back.

Once you have invested your money in a tracker fund you can pretty much forget about it apart from when you get a report on your investment from the company – usually twice a year. Some years your money will have increased, other years it will go have gone down, depending on how the index itself did that year.

Remember, you need to have your money in that investment for at least five years, ideally ten, to get any real benefit from it. Over the long-term these funds have historically gone up, even though at times it looked shaky!

See below for a list of some of the companies that offer index-tracking funds. They’re all easy to invest with and all are good names. When it comes to choosing which company to go with there’s not a lot to choose between them really. The annual charges are the main thing to consider; just go for the cheapest on the whole.

Also, it’s a good idea to mix and match as the years go on. Put some money in one of them one year, then try another one the next year and so on. After a while you could also be adventurous and try funds that track foreign indices. There – you’re investing in the stock market. That wasn’t hard was it?!

Download this free guide to investing in times of reducing interest rates. Just click here.

Useful links

• Legal and General
• Hargreaves Lansdown
• National Friendly
  
• M & G
• Scottish Widows
• Virgin
• Gartmore