Most ETFs do not have a minimum investment required to meet in order to put money into action. This feature has allowed investors who are just starting out to play the stock market, and build up wealth, whereas most mutual funds have heady minimum investment totals required to invest in them. This has allowed individual investors more freedom and potentially let those enter the market who formerly could not without ETFs. [Can ETFs Ever Top Mutual Fund Assets?]
Most of all, ETFs have made hard to access corners of the market available to investors, at a reasonable price. For example, most commodities such as gold or oil were hard for individual investors to gain exposure to. ETFs made investment in this area of the market easy and cost-effective, with choices of hard assets or futures contract-investing available to the masses.
Going forward, ETFs will continue to have a positive impact upon the way people invest and the manner in which Wall Street profits from managing money.
Tisha Guerrero contributed to this article.