Image Credit: Alex Nabaum
By Jason Zweig | March 1, 2019 11:00 a.m. ET
The best things in life may be free, but free investing can carry a cost.
On Feb. 25, SoFi, an online financial-services firm, filed a preliminary prospectus for four exchange-traded funds, including two that will charge no management fees. That comes after Fidelity Investments’ zero-fee mutual funds took in nearly $3 billion in the last five months of 2018, according to the firm.
Don’t get me wrong: Lower investing costs are nearly always better. Funds that call themselves free, however, can monkey with investors’ minds in surprising ways. If funds with zero expenses become more popular, investors will need to remember that expense-free doesn’t mean risk-free….
To read the rest of the column:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-you-should-think-twice-about-free-funds-11551456003
For further reading:
Books:
Benjamin Graham, The Intelligent Investor
Jason Zweig, The Devil’s Financial Dictionary
Jason Zweig, Your Money and Your Brain
Jason Zweig, The Little Book of Safe Money
Articles and other resources: