Meet the "SPY kids," the 11 children tied to Wall Street's first ETF.

Whether you’re leaping straight into the future and looking for stocks picked by AI, a sci-fi aficionado who wants to invest in space travel, or a drama enthusiast looking to make money on stock market volatility, the ETF market’s weird corners have something for you.

State Street, a popular ETF issuer, is responsible for the SPDR S&P 500 ETF. This fund trades under the SPY ticker, and State Street maintains a web page with key facts and figures on SPY. For instance, its expense ratio is 0.0945%, or $9.45 on an initial $10K investment.

A 10-question quiz from the SEC allows investors to test their basic knowledge about exchange-traded funds and their investing counterparts, mutual funds. Here’s a sample question: Is the past performance of a fund a good indicator of future results? (Hint, the answer is no).

Stocks are added to the S&P 500 by a secret selection committee that meets regularly to assess which companies can remain in the index, which companies need to be added, and which companies no longer meet the criteria. The members of the committee used to be public, but S&P Global decided to keep its members confidential after companies sent packages, letters, and gifts to try to make it into the index.

Exchange-traded funds seem to offer something for everyone. As tracked by ETF.com, there are 338 thematic ETFs, offering exposure to “baskets” of stocks covering global infrastructure, genomics, cannabis, and more.

Investors are likely most familiar with ETFs that invest in an index or other grouping of stocks. However, BlackRock breaks down a wide variety of options, including commodity ETFs, currency ETFs, and bond ETFs.

John Bogle, the founder of The Vanguard Group, created a fund that tracked the S&P 500 in 1976. That fund created an unprecedented opportunity for individual retail investors, brought down fees across the board, and popularized the belief that passive, low-cost index fund investments would outperform actively managed portfolios long-term.

With fees removed from the equation and more time at home thanks to pandemic-related lockdowns, Americans who had never bought or sold stocks before started participating in the market. Charles Schwab dubs this cohort “Generation Investor” and notes individuals from all age ranges took part in this phenomenon. Study up here.

Instead of purchasing individual stocks and bonds, new investors may want to start in funds that track an index—like the S&P 500—or that hold a group of themed stocks.

In January 2024, the US Securities and Exchange Commission made history when it decided to allow fund issuers to launch bitcoin ETFs. This new class of exchange-traded fund tracks spot bitcoin prices, essentially allowing investors to hold bitcoin without actually having to buy the crypto.

The Dalios have committed $250 per child to 300,000 children under 10 years old in Connecticut who live in ZIP codes where the median income is less than $150K—an expected total of at least $75M. The money is designated for "Trump Accounts," or investment accounts with $1K provided to children to put towards education or starting a small business.

While less than half of retail investors hold ETFs in their portfolio, this figure is up dramatically in recent years, and experts forecast continued adoption as more options hit the market and total ETF assets under management continue to grow.

Given that there are more than 3,000 ETFs trading in the US, the list of options for individual investors may be overwhelming. VettaFi provides a database that allows potential investors to sort funds by sector, region, strategy, fund issuers, and more. It tracks nearly 100 funds focused on general technology but just one that focuses on copper mining.

There are risks, there are also major perks to buying a bond ETF, like the ability to purchase bonds on the stock market.

This list grabs the top 100 by trading volume, or the average number of shares that have traded hands over a 3-month period. Top of the list is a semiconductor-focused fund from Direxion, followed by other tech-centric offerings.

When average Americans began pouring into the stock market, Wall Street wasn’t sure if its new guests were there to stay. But at the end of 2023, Public confidently declared that retail investors “weren’t going anywhere” after 30 million new individuals began buying and selling stock. Download the report to learn more here.

Since Alfred Winslow Jones formed the first hedge fund in 1949, traders have rolled out an increasingly complex array of investment strategies. They all aim to beat increasingly efficient markets and/or to provide ample downside protection against sell-offs.

In the US, many retail investors lack the SEC-mandated status (a high enough net worth, income, and other factors) to directly invest in hedge funds. The regulator considers hedge funds too risky for the masses. Hedge fund-like strategies have emerged as a workaround, despite potential pitfalls.

Unlike previous indexes from S&P, the S&P 500 could be computed in real time using computer technology that tracked stock tickers across stock exchanges. This innovation is partly what led to 500 companies being listed on the index, a huge increase from the 90 companies in S&P's flagship index when the company had to do all the analysis by hand.

From the 1941 merger of Standard Statistics and Poor's Publishing to the creation of the S&P 500 in 1957, the company that created the famous index has long been a leader in financial intelligence.

The rapid collapse of FTX, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, in late 2022 shocked the world. At the center of the fiasco was Sam Bankman-Fried, a 29-year-old wunderkind who had entranced politicians, journalists, financiers, and others with his melding of altruism and digital currency. The sordid details revealed as the empire fell captured public attention—venture into the death spiral with this in-depth podcast from Bloomberg.

In 2023, Rob Copeland—who covered Bridgewater Associates for The Wall Street Journal for 10 years before moving to The New York Times—wrote a book that drew from interviews, company documents, and meeting recordings. "The Fund" highlighted sexual harassment scandals, a company contract to hire strippers, and a toxic company culture. Dalio has criticized the author for being sensational and a gossip.

While the decision to add a company to the index is ultimately up to the selection committee, any prospective company has to meet some criteria to be considered. To join, the company must have been profitable for the last four quarters, must have a market capitalization exceeding $22.7B, and meet certain requirements around tradeable stock availability (or float).

Investors typically hold them for a defined period before they “reset.” During periods of market volatility, buffered ETFs can seem particularly appealing.

Hedge fund traders tied to insider trading by probing prosecutors are relatively rare. When billionaire hedge fund legend Steve Cohen, founder of SAC Capital, pleaded guilty to trading on inside information, Wall Street trembled. The outcome of the case remains a cautionary tale for traders today.

The greatest investors have all made a fortune off of their success and, in many cases, have helped millions of others achieve similar returns. Read about the lives and approaches of Carl Icahn, Warren Buffett, George Soros, and more.

The parent explains the basics of what a 529 is, its advantages, and how it works, breaking down portfolio options for investing in 529 plans using Vanguard as a provider.

Wall Street's historical timeline starts with Wall Street getting its name in the 1600s and ends with details about the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011.

Founded in 1982, E-Trade was the first-ever online brokerage, pioneering a method of investing that is common today. Its story is part of a timeline that the New York Times put together of key moments in early fintech history.

One unexpected perk is that ETFs are typically associated with lower capital gains tax requirements. Read this list to learn more about the benefits of investing in ETFs.

The "crystal ball" game reveals how well you would do trading stocks and bonds if you could see the front page of the Wall Street Journal one day in advance.

Biotech ETFs offer a diversified alternative to purchasing an individual biotech stock and gambling on whether an individual company’s clinical trial yields the next blockbuster cancer treatment or an absolute flop. This list of the top biotech ETFs in 2025 can help you learn more about them.

The S&P 500 is a market-cap-weighted index, which means companies with larger market capitalizations have a larger impact on the index's overall performance. Many of the top companies in the index are currently tech companies—including Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Apple—that all have large investments in artificial intelligence. As a result, some analysts are concerned that the index is overly exposed to risky AI investments.

If you can’t get enough politics in your life, why not invest like a politician? Because members of Congress are required to disclose their stock purchases, you can do just that, and the NANC and KRUZ ETFs make it even easier. NANC, referencing Nancy Pelosi, holds a basket of stocks that Democratic politicians have purchased. KRUZ, referencing Ted Cruz, holds a basket of Republican-held stocks.

This raised concerns for investors about the index's risk exposure. As many large tech companies continued posting record highs, analysts argued that the top-heavy index was becoming less representative of the economy as a whole.

Archegos, which managed the assets of Bill Hwang, wasn’t subject to the same oversight as traditional investment firms when it collapsed.

When the S&P 500 index was released in 1957, it was helpful for investors, but not necessarily profitable. S&P Global now makes more than $1B a year just from selling its index data. Alongside its other services, like credit ratings, S&P Global makes more than $14B a year.

A reporter dove into how highly anticipated IPOs can still be risky, and why retail investors should be wary of investing right away.

The founder of a multifamily office firm offers lessons on how to preserve wealth for generations from a global perspective, like educating younger family members.

An article details some of the wildest bell-ringing day stunts in recent history, from Clifford the Big Red Dog ringing the opening bell to one company's employees roasting marshmallows in a campfire on Wall Street as it went public.