Which online services offer logarithmic charts for equities such as index funds and ETFs?
"The charts on nasdaq.com are log based, if you look closely you can see that the spacing between evenly incremented prices is tighter at the top of the chart and wider at the bottom.   It's easiest to see on a stock with a wide price range using candlestick where you can clearly see the grid.  I'm also not seeing the ""absurdism"" you indicate when I look at google finance with the settings ticked to use log on the price axis.  I see what I'd expect which is basically a given vertical differential on the price axis representing the same percentage change in price no matter where it is located. For example if I look at GOOG from the earliest date they have (Aug 20 2004) to a nice high point (dec 7 2007) I see a cart where the gap from the the bottom of the chart (seems to be right around 100) to the 200 point, (a 100% increase) is the same as from 200 to 400 (a 100% increase) is the same as 400 to 800 (a 100# increase)   That's exactly what I expect from a 'log' chart on a financial site, each relative move up or down of the same distance, represents the same relative change in value. So I'm having difficulty understanding what your complaint is. (note: I'm using chrome, which is the browser I'd expect to work best with any google website.  results with other browsers could of course vary)  If you want to do some other wacky math with the axis then I humbly suggest that something like Excel is your friend.   Goto the charts at nasdaq.com  get the chart displaying the period you care about, click the chart to display the unlying data, there will be an option to download the data.  cram it into excel and go wild as you want with charting it out.  e.g. note that step 2 links to client side javascript, so you will need javascript enabled, if you are running something like noscript, disable it for this site.  Also since the data opens in a new window, you may also need to enabled 'popups' for the site. (and yes, I sometimes get an annoying news alert advert popup  and have to close it when the chart first appears.. oh well it pays the rent and nasdaq is not charging you so for access so such is the price for a free site. )"
"Index funds can be a very good way to get into the stock market. It's a lot easier, and cheaper, to buy a few shares of an index fund than it is to buy a few shares in hundreds of different companies. An index fund will also generally charge lower fees than an ""actively managed"" mutual fund, where the manager tries to pick which stocks to invest for you. While the actively managed fund might give you better returns (by investing in good companies instead of every company in the index) that doesn't always work out, and the fees can eat away at that advantage. (Stocks, on average, are expected to yield an annual return of 4%, after inflation. Consider that when you see an expense ratio of 1%. Index funds should charge you more like 0.1%-0.3% or so, possibly more if it's an exotic index.) The question is what sort of index you're going to invest in. The Standard and Poor's 500 (S&P 500) is a major index, and if you see someone talking about the performance of a mutual fund or investment strategy, there's a good chance they'll compare it to the return of the S&P 500. Moreover, there are a variety of index funds and exchange-traded funds that offer very good expense ratios (e.g. Vanguard's ETF charges ~0.06%, very cheap!). You can also find some funds which try to get you exposure to the entire world stock market, e.g. Vanguard Total World Stock ETF, NYSE:VT). An index fund is probably the ideal way to start a portfolio - easy, and you get a lot of diversification. Later, when you have more money available, you can consider adding individual stocks or investing in specific sectors or regions. (Someone else suggested Brazil/Russia/Indo-China, or BRICs - having some money invested in that region isn't necessarily a bad idea, but putting all or most of your money in that region would be. If BRICs are more of your portfolio then they are of the world economy, your portfolio isn't balanced. Also, while these countries are experiencing a lot of economic growth, that doesn't always mean that the companies that you own stock in are the ones which will benefit; small businesses and new ventures may make up a significant part of that growth.) Bond funds are useful when you want to diversify your portfolio so that it's not all stocks. There's a bunch of portfolio theory built around asset allocation strategies. The idea is that you should try to maintain a target mix of assets, whatever the market's doing. The basic simplified guideline about investing for retirement says that your portfolio should have (your age)% in bonds (e.g. a 30-year-old should have 30% in bonds, a 50-year-old 50%.) This helps maintain a balance between the volatility of your portfolio (the stock market's ups and downs) and the rate of return: you want to earn money when you can, but when it's almost time to spend it, you don't want a sudden stock market crash to wipe it all out. Bonds help preserve that value (but don't have as nice of a return). The other idea behind asset allocation is that if the market changes - e.g. your stocks go up a lot while your bonds stagnate - you rebalance and buy more bonds. If the stock market subsequently crashes, you move some of your bond money back into stocks. This basically means that you buy low and sell high, just by maintaining your asset allocation. This is generally more reliable than trying to ""time the market"" and move into an asset class before it goes up (and move out before it goes down). Market-timing is just speculation. You get better returns if you guess right, but you get worse returns if you guess wrong. Commodity funds are useful as another way to diversify your portfolio, and can serve as a little bit of protection in case of crisis or inflation. You can buy gold, silver, platinum and palladium ETFs on the stock exchanges. Having a small amount of money in these funds isn't a bad idea, but commodities can be subject to violent price swings! Moreover, a bar of gold doesn't really earn any money (and owning a share of a precious-metals ETF will incur administrative, storage, and insurance costs to boot). A well-run business does earn money. Assuming you're saving for the long haul (retirement or something several decades off) my suggestion for you would be to start by investing most of your money* in index funds to match the total world stock market (with something like the aforementioned NYSE:VT, for instance), a small portion in bonds, and a smaller portion in commodity funds. (For all the negative stuff I've said about market-timing, it's pretty clear that the bond market is very expensive right now, and so are the commodities!) Then, as you do additional research and determine what sort investments are right for you, add new investment money in the places that you think are appropriate - stock funds, bond funds, commodity funds, individual stocks, sector-specific funds, actively managed mutual funds, et cetera - and try to maintain a reasonable asset allocation. Have fun. *(Most of your investment money. You should have a separate fund for emergencies, and don't invest money in stocks if you know you're going need it within the next few years)." Also, when they mean SP500 fund - it means that fund which invests in the top 500 companies in the SP Index, is my understanding correct? Yes that is right. In reality they may not be able to invest in all 500 companies in same proportion, but is reflective of the composition. I wanted to know whether India also has a company similar to Vanguard which offers low cost index funds. Almost all mutual fund companies offer a NIFTY index fund, both as mutual fund as well as ETF. You can search for index fund and see the total assets to find out which is bigger compared to others. There are lots of options out there  * Buy index funds and non industry-specific ETFs   * invest with financial managers and hedge funds (who are bound by laws)  * Invest in real estate and small business   Etc.  The real abuse comes from buying specific equities poised to benefit from policy. And it's a cancer on both sides of the aisle. "Index funds may invest either in index components directly or in other instruments (like ETFs, index options, futures, etc.) which are highly correlated with the index. The specific fund prospectus or description on any decent financial site should contain these details.  Index funds are not actively managed, but that does not mean they aren't managed at all - if index changes and the fund includes specific stock, they would adjust the fund content. Of course, the downside of it is that selling off large amounts of certain stock (on its low point, since it's being excluded presumably because of its decline) and buying large amount of different stock (on its raising point) may have certain costs, which would cause the fund lag behind the index. Usually the difference is not overly large, but it exists.  Investing in the index contents directly involves more transactions - which the fund distributes between members, so it doesn't usually buy individually for each member but manages the portfolio in big chunks, which saves costs. Of course, the downside is that it can lag behind the index if it's volatile. Also, in order to buy specific shares, you will have to shell out for a number of whole share prices - which for a big index may be a substantial sum and won't allow you much flexibility (like ""I want to withdraw half of my investment in S&P 500"") since you can't usually own 1/10 of a share. With index funds, the entry price is usually quite low and increments in which you can add or withdraw funds are low too." I'm answering in a perspective of an End-User within the United Kingdom. Most stockbrokers won't provide Real-time information without 'Level 2' access, however this comes free for most who trade over a certain threshold. If you're like me, who trade within their ISA Holding each year, you need to look elsewhere.  I personally use IG.com. They've recently began a stockbroking service, whereas this comes with realtime information etc with a paid account without any 'threshold'. Additionally, you may want to look into CFDs/Spreadbets as these, won't include the heavy 'fees' and tax liabilities that trading with stocks may bring. I'm responsible for all our hedging.  Since we sell the energy to end users we do mostly fixed buys, swaps and calls.  I'm a excel guru and dabble a little in SQL.  we have Crystal Ball as well but i have no idea how to use it.  I guess I'm trying to figure out if there is a tool that people use to help me analyze the spreads. or perhaps some reading material to help me through this. This is what i've been working towards for so long and i really don't want to fuck this up I use and recommend barchart.com. Again you have to register but it's free. Although it's a US system it has a full listing of UK stocks and ETFs under International > London. The big advantage of barchart.com is that you can do advanced technical screening with Stochastics and RS, new highs and lows, moving averages etc. You're not stuck with just fundamentals, which in my opinion belong to a previous era. Even if you don't share that opinion you'd still find barchart.com useful for UK stocks. The portion of a stock movement not correlated with stocks in general is called Alpha. I don't know of any online tools to graph alpha. Keep in mind that a company like Apple is so huge right now that any properly weighted index will have to correlate with it to some degree.