Indian equivalent of Vanguard S&P 500
Also, when they mean SP500 fund - it means that fund which invests in the top 500 companies in the SP Index, is my understanding correct? Yes that is right. In reality they may not be able to invest in all 500 companies in same proportion, but is reflective of the composition. I wanted to know whether India also has a company similar to Vanguard which offers low cost index funds. Almost all mutual fund companies offer a NIFTY index fund, both as mutual fund as well as ETF. You can search for index fund and see the total assets to find out which is bigger compared to others.
i will not calculate it for you but just calculate the discounted cash flow (by dividing with 1.1 / 1.1^2 / 1.1^3   ...)of each single exercise as stated and deduct the 12.000 of the above sum.  in the end compare which has the highest npv In general, the goal of an S&P 500 index fund is to replicate the performance of the S&P 500 Index.  To do this, the fund will buy the same stocks in the same proportions as the weighting of the Index. The S&P 500 Index is free-float capitalization weighted.  This means that the higher capitalization stocks (based on publicly traded shares only) are more heavily weighted and factor into the Index value more heavily than the smaller capitalization stocks, or the stocks that have a smaller publicly traded value.  For example, companies like Apple, ExxonMobil, and Microsoft have a much larger weight in the index value than smaller companies. Alternatively, there are some S&P index funds that are equal-weighted.  In these funds, the managers have chosen to purchase all 500 of the stocks in the index, but in equal proportions instead of the weighted proportions of the index.  These equal-weighted funds will not as closely match the index price as the traditionally weighted index funds.  Instead, they might do better or worse than the index, depending on how the individual stocks do. You'll need to look at the prospectus of the index funds you are interested in to see which approach the fund is taking. You could look up the P/E of an equivalent ETF, or break the ETF into components and look those up. Each index has its own methodology, usually weighted by market cap.  See here: http://www.amex.com/etf/prodInf/EtAllhold.jsp?Product_Symbol=DIA According to this page on their website (http://www.kotaksecurities.com/internationaleq/homepage.htm), Kotak Securities is one big-name Indian broker that offers an international equities account to its Indian customers.  Presumably, they should be able to answer all your questions. Since this is a competitive market, one can assume that others like ICICI Direct must also be doing so. "There are some index funds out there like this - generally they are called ""equal weight"" funds.  For example, the Rydex S&P Equal-Weight ETF.  Rydex also has several other equal weight sector funds" and seems to do better than the S&P 500 too. No, that's not true. In fact, this fund is somewhere between S&P500 and the NASDAQ Composite indexes wrt to performance. From my experience (I have it too), it seems to fall almost in the middle between SPY and QQQ in daily moves. So it does provide diversification, but you're basically diversifying between various indexes. The cost is the higher expense ratios (compare VTI to VOO). "It's easy for me to look at an IRA, no deposits or withdrawal in a year, and compare the return to some index. Once you start adding transactions, not so easy. Here's a method that answers your goal as closely as I can offer: SPY goes back to 1993. It's the most quoted EFT that replicates the S&P 500, and you specifically asked to compare how the investment would have gone if you were in such a fund. This is an important distinction, as I don't have to adjust for its .09% expense, as you would have been subject to it in this fund. Simply go to Yahoo, and start with the historical prices. Easy to do this on a spreadsheet. I'll assume you can find all your purchases inc dates & dollars invested. Look these up and treat those dollars as purchases of SPY. Once the list is done, go back and look up the dividends, issues quarterly, and on the dividend date, add the shares it would purchase based on that day's price. Of course, any withdrawals get accounted for the same way, take out the number of SPY shares it would have bought. Remember to include the commission on SPY, whatever your broker charges.  If I've missed something, I'm sure we'll see someone point that out, I'd be happy to edit that in, to make this wiki-worthy.  Edit - due to the nature of comments and the inability to edit, I'm adding this here. Perhaps I'm reading the question too pedantically, perhaps not. I'm reading it as ""if instead of doing whatever I did, I invested in an S&P index fund, how would I have performed?"" To measure one's return against a benchmark, the mechanics of the benchmarks calculation are not needed. In a comment I offer an example - if there were an ETF based on some type of black-box investing for which the investments were not disclosed at all, only day's end pricing, my answer above still applies exactly. The validity of such comparisons is a different question, but the fact that the formulation of the EFT doesn't come into play remains. In my comment below which I removed I hypothesized an ETF name, not intending it to come off as sarcastic. For the record, if one wishes to start JoesETF, I'm ok with it." There are multiple ETFs which inversely track the common indices, though many of these are leveraged.  For example, SDS tracks approximately -200% of the S&P 500.  (Note: due to how these are structured, they are only suitable for very short term investments) You can also consider using Put options for the various indices as well.  For example, you could buy a Put for the SPY out a year or so to give you some fairly cheap insurance (assuming it's a small part of your portfolio). One other option is to invest against the market volatility.  As the market makes sudden swings, the volatility goes up; this tends to be true more when it falls than when it rises.  One way of invesing in market volatility is to trade options against the VIX. absolutely $SPY ETF is the way to go if your point of comparison is the S&P and you want to do low maintenance. The top ten holdings for these funds don't overlap by even one stock. It seems to me they are targeting an index for comparison, but making no attempt to replicate a list of holdings as would, say, a true S&P index. "You are interpreting things wrong.  Indian Infotech and Software Ltd (BOM:509051) clearly has volume and trades.  The MoneyControl site says  Your words like ""Nobody is selling the stock"" and ""no trade going on"" are completely unfounded." Vanguard has low cost ETFs that track the S&P 500. The ticker is VOO, its expense ratio is 0.05%, which is pretty low compared to others in the market. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but you won't have to pay tax on the dividends if it's in a retirement account such as a Traditional(pay taxes when you withdraw) or Roth IRA(pay income/federal/fica etc, but no taxes on withdrawal)... If you are looking for an index index fund, I know vanguard offers their Star fund which invests in 11 other funds of theirs and is diversified across stocks, bonds, and short term investments. You might what to check out Interactive Brokers. If your India stock is NSE listed they might be able to do it since they support trading on that exchange. I would talk to a customer service rep there first. https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=exchanges&p=asia Then buy an indexed ETF or mutual fund that tracks the S&amp;P 500 and leave your money there until you need it. If you can (there are restrictions for income, etc.), try and setup a retirement vehicle, such as a Roth IRA to get tax advantages.