By trading Index Shares (ETFs) you get all of the following benefits and more:

• You never risk a 100% loss with indexes. Indexes cannot go bankrupt as companies such as Enron did.
• With an ETFs you get an entire portfolio in the palm of your hand.
• Less Capital Investment: You won't need to purchase a mutual fund or an assemblage of stocks to get the performance of an index. You and buy into the index directly and as easily as a stock, with low commissions, and no need to worry about load!
• Less Risk: Recent history proves individual stocks are easily manipulated. The last thing you want to be part of is a classic ‘pump-and-dump’ scheme.
• Less Volatility: By their nature, indexes offer much more stability, as they tend of average out the volatility of many individual stocks. Therefore one does not need to worry about the news and fluctuations of any individual stock.
• Many Derivatives: When trading an index, you not only get the ability to trade index share (DIA, SPY, QQQQ), but you can also trade index options and index futures. Index options and futures carry far more risk, and of course more gain, but are not as volatile as an individual stock.
• Ability to buy on margin.
• All ETFs may be sold short even on down tick (i.e., a last sale price lower than preceding last sale).
• Buying or selling throughout the trading day unlike mutual funds, which are priced daily at 4 p.m.
• Lower costs for investor affordability.
• You can purchase as little as one share.
• No high management and sponsor fees.
• Opportunity for dividends.
• Ease and convenience.
• Tax advantages.
• Instant exposure to a diversified portfolio of stocks.