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Why index funds have different prices?
To add on to the other answers, in asking why funds have different price points one might be asking why stocks aren't normalized so a unit price of $196 in one stock can be directly compared to the same price in another stock.  While this might not make sense with AAPL vs. GOOG (it would be like comparing apples to oranges, pun intended, not to mention how would two different companies ever come to such an agreement) it does seem like it would make more sense when tracking an index.  And in fact less agreement between different funds would be required as some "natural" price points exist such as dividing by 100 (like some S&P funds do). However, there are a couple of reasons why two different funds might price their shares of the same underlying index differently. Demand - If there are a lot of people wanting the issue, more shares might be issued at a lower price.  Or, there might be a lot of demand centered on a certain price range. Pricing - shares that are priced higher will find fewer buyers, because it makes it harder to buy round lots (100 shares at $100/share is $10,000 while at $10/share it's only $1000).  While not everyone buys stock in lots, it's important if you do anything with (standardized) options on the stock because they are always acting on lots.  In addition, even if you don't buy round lots a higher price makes it harder to buy in for a specific amount because each unit share has a greater chance to be further away from your target amount. Conversely, shares that are priced too low will also find fewer buyers, because some holders have minimum price requirements due to low price (e.g. penny) stocks tending to be more speculative and volatile. So, different funds tracking the same index might pick different price points to satisfy demand that is not being filled by other funds selling at a different price point.