Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway CEO and chairman.
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In 2007, Warren Buffett made a $1 million bet that he could outperform hedge fund managers over the course of a decade by investing in an S&P 500 index fund.
Some individual investors are making similar bets on the S&P 500 with their money, whether it be through exchange-traded funds or mutual funds.
True to its name, the S&P 500 index includes 500 large U.S. companies. The index is market cap-weighted, with each listed company’s weighting based on the total value of all its outstanding shares. The index is rebalanced quarterly.
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The three biggest ETFs track the S&P 500 index, according to Morningstar.They are the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, which trades under the ticker SPY;iShares Core S&P 500 ETF, with ticker IVV; and Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, which trades as VOO. Together, those funds make up almost 17% of the U.S. ETF market, according to Morningstar.
In 2024, VOO has been the leader of those three funds in attracting new money, with $71 billion in net inflows over the first nine months, according to Morningstar, beating the record SPY set in 2023 by $20 billion.
Future index performance could be ‘muted’
The S&P 500 index has continued to make headlines for new all-time highs in 2024. Year to date, the index is up around 20% as of Oct. 8. Over the past 12 months, it has climbed 33%.
That performance has bested some experts’ predictions for the index heading into this year, owing in part to a stronger U.S. economy than had been anticipated.
“That elusive recession everybody was looking for never materialized,” said Larry Adam, chief investment officer at Raymond James.
Now, the St. Petersburg, Florida-based firm is predicting a soft landing for the U.S. economy. Yet the run-up in stocks may not be as strong.
“I think you’re going to see more muted performance — still upward, but more muted,” Adam said.
Historically, from the start of October through Election Day, the market tends to be down, on average, by about 1.5% or so, he said.
“The reason for that is the market doesn’t like uncertainty,” Adam said.
The good news is the market tends to recoup those losses and move higher, he said.
Goldman Sachs just raised its S&P 500 index forecast for 2024 to 6,000 up from 5,600 to reflect expected earnings growth. Tom Lee, Fundstrat Global Advisors managing partner and head of research, also recently told CNBC he’s calling for a target of 6,000 for the S&P 500 by year-end.
S&P 500 ‘hard to beat in the long run’
Investing in the S&P 500 index is a popular strategy.
“There are reasons why it works so well that will never change,” said Bryan Armour, director of passive strategies research at Morningstar.
Among the advantages: It’s low cost, it captures a large portion of the opportunities available to active managers and it’s “hard to beat in the long run,” he said.
“In general, I would say the S&P 500 is better, more well diversified than most investment strategies,” Armour said.
That can allow you to take a set-it-and-forget-it approach and avoid trying to time the market, he said.
However, there are definite risks that come with exclusively investing in an S&P 500 index fund on the equity side of a portfolio.
“The S&P 500 has been the absolute best thing [investors] could have been doing the past seven or eight years,” said Sean Williams, a certified financial planner and principal at Cadence Wealth Partners in Concord, North Carolina.
“There’s a lot of people who have that mentality of, ‘Why would I do anything differently?'” he said.
Generally, it is not a good idea to have everything in any one position, even if it is big U.S. companies that have done very well in the past decade, Williams said.
It always helps to have exposure to other areas, he said, such as international, small- and mid-cap companies, and real estate, for example.
Investing in an S&P 500 index strategy comes with concentration risk. For example, information technology comprises 31.7% of the index, with companies including Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia and Broadcom.
To mitigate that risk, investors may consider moving to a total market portfolio like the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, which trades under the ticker symbol VTI, which can provide less concentration at the top of the portfolio, Armour said.
Additionally, to get broader exposure, investors may also consider buying a small value ETF, an area that Morningstar analysts currently think is “pretty significantly undervalued,” Armour said.
A person holds a sign during a protest against cuts made by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to the Social Security Administration, in White Plains, New York, U.S., March 22, 2025.
Nathan Layne | Reuters
The Trump administration’s appeal of a temporary restraining order blocking the so-called Department of Government Efficiency from accessing sensitive personal Social Security Administration data has been dismissed.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit on Tuesday dismissed the government’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction. The case will proceed in the district court. A motion for a preliminary injunction will be filed later this week, according to national legal organization Democracy Forward.
The temporary restraining order was issued on March 20 by federal Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander and blocks DOGE and related agents and employees from accessing agency systems that contain personally identifiable information.
That includes information such as Social Security numbers, medical provider information and treatment records, employer and employee payment records, employee earnings, addresses, bank records, and tax information.
DOGE team members were also ordered to delete all nonanonymized personally identifiable information in their possession.
The plaintiffs include unions and retiree advocacy groups, namely the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the Alliance for Retired Americans and the American Federation of Teachers.
“We are pleased the 4th Circuit agreed to let this important case continue in district court,” Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said in a written statement. “Every American retiree must be able to trust that the Social Security Administration will protect their most sensitive and personal data from unwarranted disclosure.”
The Trump administration’s appeal ignored standard legal procedure, according to Democracy Forward. The administration’s efforts to halt the enforcement of the temporary restraining order have also been denied.
“The president will continue to seek all legal remedies available to ensure the will of the American people is executed,” Liz Huston, a White House spokesperson, said via email.
The Social Security Administration did not respond to a request from CNBC for comment.
Immediately after the March 20 temporary restraining order was put in place, Social Security Administration Acting Commissioner Lee Dudek said in press interviews that he may have to shut down the agency since it “applies to almost all SSA employees.”
Dudek was admonished by Hollander, who called that assertion “inaccurate” and said the court order “expressly applies only to SSA employees working on the DOGE agenda.”
Dudek then said that the “clarifying guidance” issued by the court meant he would not shut down the agency. “SSA employees and their work will continue under the [temporary restraining order],” Dudek said in a March 21 statement.
Many Americans are paying a hefty price for their credit card debt.
As a primary source of unsecured borrowing, 60% of credit cardholders carry debt from month to month, according to a new report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
At the same time, credit card interest rates are “very high,” averaging 23% annually in 2023, the New York Fed found, also making credit cards one of the most expensive ways to borrow money.
“With the vast majority of the American public using credit cards for their purchases, the interest rate that is attached to these products is significant,” said Erica Sandberg, consumer finance expert at CardRates.com. “The more a debt costs, the more stress this puts on an already tight budget.”
Most credit cards have a variable rate, which means there’s a direct connection to the Federal Reserve’s benchmark. And yet, credit card lenders set annual percentage rates well above the central bank’s key borrowing rate, currently targeted in a range between 4.25% to 4.5%, where it has been since December.
Following the Federal Reserve’s rate hike in 2022 and 2023, the average credit card rate rose from 16.34% to more than 20% today — a significant increase fueled by the Fed’s actions to combat inflation.
“Card issuers have determined what the market will bear and are comfortable within this range of interest rates,” said Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree.
APRs will come down as the central bank reduces rates, but they will still only ease off extremely high levels. With just a few potential quarter-point cuts on deck, APRs aren’t likely to fall much, according to Schulz.
Despite the steep cost, consumers often turn to credit cards, in part because they are more accessible than other types of loans, Schulz said.
In fact, credit cards are the No. 1 source of unsecured borrowing and Americans’ credit card tab continues to creep higher. In the last year, credit card debt rose to a record $1.21 trillion.
Because credit card lending is unsecured, it is also banks’ riskiest type of lending.
“Lenders adjust interest rates for two primary reasons: cost and risk,” CardRates’ Sandberg said.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s research shows that credit card charge-offs averaged 3.96% of total balances between 2010 and 2023. That compares to only 0.46% and 0.43% for business loans and residential mortgages, respectively.
As a result, roughly 53% of banks’ annual default losses were due to credit card lending, according to the NY Fed research.
“When you offer a product to everyone you are assuming an awful lot of risk,” Schulz said.
Further, “when times get tough they get tough for most everybody,” he added. “That makes it much more challenging for card issuers.”
The best way to pay off debt
The best move for those struggling to pay down revolving credit card debt is to consolidate with a 0% balance transfer card, experts suggest.
“There is enormous competition in the credit card market,” Sandberg said. Because lenders are constantly trying to capture new cardholders, those 0% balance transfer credit card offers are still widely available.
Cards offering 12, 15 or even 24 months with no interest on transferred balances “are basically the best tool in your toolbelt when it comes to knocking down credit card debt,” Schulz said. “Not accruing interest for two years on a balance is pretty hard to argue with.”
Andrew Ross Sorkin speaks with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink during the New York Times DealBook Summit in the Appel Room at the Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City on Nov. 30, 2022.
In a new letter to investors, Fink writes the traditional allocation comprised of 60% stocks and 40% bonds that dates back to the 1950s “may no longer fully represent true diversification.”
“The future standard portfolio may look more like 50/30/20 — stocks, bonds and private assets like real estate, infrastructure and private credit.” Fink writes.
Most professional investors love to talk their book, and Fink is no exception. BlackRock has pursued several recent acquisitions — Global Infrastructure Partners, Preqin and HPS Investment Partners — with the goal of helping to increase investors’ access to private markets.
The effort to make it easier to incorporate both public and private investments in a portfolio is analogous to index versus active investments in 2009, Fink said.
Those investment strategies that were then considered separately can now be blended easily at a low cost.
Fink hopes the same will eventually be said for public and private markets.
Yet shopping for private investments now can feel “a bit like buying a house in an unfamiliar neighborhood before Zillow existed, where finding accurate prices was difficult or impossible,” Fink writes.
60/40 portfolio still a ‘great starting point’
After both stocks and bonds saw declines in 2022, some analysts declared the 60/40 portfolio strategy dead. In 2024, however, such a balanced portfolio would have provided a return of about 14%.
“If you want to keep things very simple, the 60/40 portfolio or a target date fund is a great starting point,” said Amy Arnott, portfolio strategist at Morningstar.
If you’re willing to add more complexity, you could consider smaller positions in other asset classes like commodities, private equity or private debt, she said.
However, a 20% allocation in private assets is on the aggressive side, Arnott said.
The total value of private assets globally is about $14.3 trillion, while the public markets are worth about $247 trillion, she said.
For investors who want to keep their asset allocations in line with the market value of various asset classes, that would imply a weighting of about 6% instead of 20%, Arnott said.
Yet a 50/30/20 portfolio is a lot closer to how institutional investors have been allocating their portfolios for years, said Michael Rosen, chief investment officer at Angeles Investments.
The 60/40 portfolio, which Rosen previously said reached its “expiration date,” hasn’t been used by his firm’s endowment and foundation clients for decades.
There’s a key reason why. Institutional investors need to guarantee a specific return, also while paying for expenses and beating inflation, Rosen said.
While a 50/30/20 allocation may help deliver “truly outsized returns” to the mass retail market, there’s also a “lot of baggage” that comes with that strategy, Rosen said.
There’s a lack of liquidity, which means those holdings aren’t as easily converted to cash, Rosen said.
What’s more, there’s generally a lack of transparency and significantly higher fees, he said.
Prospective investors should be prepared to commit for 10 years to private investments, Arnott said.
And they also need to be aware that measurement issues with asset classes like private equity means past performance data may not be as reliable, she said.
For the average person, the most likely path toward tapping into private equity will be part of a 401(k) plan, Arnott said. So far, not a lot of companies have added private equity to their 401(k) offerings, but that could change, she said.
“We will probably see more plan sponsors adding private equity options to their lineups going forward,” Arnott said.