Generally, open and closed end mutual funds and hedge funds are actively managed portfolios.  Whereas, lately, the fund industry has been creating many passively managed mutual funds based on market indices.  Some investors believe that passively managed index funds can routinely outperform actively managed funds.  A very popular index fund is an exchange-traded fund (ETF).  An ETF combines the benefits of index investing with some of the benefits of individual stock ownership. “Exchange-traded” refers to shares which trade on an Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, the NASDAQ, the London Stock Exchange, or the Dublin Stock Exchange, etc.  These ETF’s have symbols and trade like an individual stock, although each ETF is comprised of many stocks, even hundreds or thousands of stocks.  Often, the highest volume stock traded on the NASDAQ is the QQQQ, which is the Powershares QQQQ Trust 100, formerly the NASDAQ 100.  ETF’s have lately become investor’s favorite way to invest in individual sectors or overseas portfolios.  Some of the advantages of ETF’s are tax efficiency for investors, relatively low expense ratios, minimum investment requirements, and ease of use.