How to properly research a Bond, Investment fund or ETF

k2788

Im new to investing and so I've only invested in shares because they are easy to understand.

Its an interesting way to learn what investing is all about. The way a companies share price rise can rise and fall as well as trying to predict how they will do in the future

I set up a Degiro account and bought a couple of low cost shares for well know companies and seen a tidy profit grow slowly over the last year.

Now I'm trying to get my head around the concepts of Bonds, Investment funds and ETF's (Mainly because these are the alternative options on my Degrio account) but there seems to be a lot less information about these types of investments.

Theres plenty of information online about the concepts of these investments but very little info about what they actually are.

For example, If I go to Investments Funds and choose a 'Provider', Lets say I pick INVESCO, the first product is "Series 4 Invesco Continental European Small Cap Equity Fund A" and unfortunately this is where I get lost amongst the endless statistics.

I read on a few other threads that the S&P 500 is a worthy investment so i managed to ""SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust" in the ETF's section under SPDR-State Street Global Advisers

I cant tell if this actually has anything to do with S&P 500 or if they are only related by name but Ive no idea how I can investigate why this is priced at 247.42 (unlike a regular share that has plenty of information)

Advice appreciated

wasabi

Try investopedia for general information and Morningstar for information on specific ETFs. You can get a lot from M* even as nonsubscriber, performance of funds, breakdown by region and sector and top 25 holdings. Very useful.

wasabi

Oh and the fund you mention, SPY, does track the S&P 500, as does VOO and probably a few others. Again, you can look it up on Morningstar, etfdb, also the provider's own site should have a prospectus - tons of info on the web about popular ETFs.