NOT ALL INDEX FUND FAMILIES ARE CREATED EQUAL So put your money in an index fund and all will be fine? Not exactly. It would be nice if we could assume that any index fund comes with the lowest and best expense ratio. Unfortunately, this isn’t true. Take Vanguard’s flagship fund, the Vanguard 500 Index Fund. It has a lovely and low expense ratio of 0.17 percent. On the other hand, many index funds charge 0.7 percent, and some even more. Sometimes they soar to more than 1 percent.
