Mutual Funds vs. ETFs

[chacho]

When I started my IRA a couple years ago, I put some money in a mutual fund, SVSPX. Recently I've started thinking, and wouldn't it save me a lot of money to get an ETF, instead, and not pay annual management fees? I'm thinking of getting my money out of SVSPX and eventually putting it in SPY. Anybody see any downside to this?

As I said, the positives I see is that I wouldn't be paying any annual management fees, only my transaction cost to buy the ETF. Also, looking at Yahoo Finance, SPY seems to pay a better dividend too...

[LongArm]

You still pay management fees with ETFs...it's just that they're usually significantly lower. I think, for most people, ETFs are a good alternative to mutual funds for many reasons.

[Bolimomo]

Most mutual funds perform much worse than the S&P. See my recent post:

http://www.onlinetradersforum.com/showthread.php?t=53092

You are better off getting returns from the market than seeing some bozo fund managers losing money on your behalf (let alone still charging you for a fee). At least that's how I feel.