What is an ETF? A 2-minute plain-English explainer
An ETF is basically a ready-made basket of investments you can buy in one click — instead of picking shares one by one.
👉 Change the numbers above — it’s your money, your assumptions.
One basket, hundreds of companies
Instead of buying Apple, then Microsoft, then hundreds more one by one, an ETF buys the whole list for you and bundles it into a single thing you can own. Each fund has a unique A 12-character international code that uniquely identifies this fund share class. More → code so you always know exactly which one you are looking at.
Try the screener above: every row is a real ETF, and each holds a basket of investments behind the scenes.
Why beginners like them
Three reasons. Spread: your money is split across many holdings, so one company doing badly matters less. Low cost: a plain index ETF charges a small yearly fee, the The yearly running cost of the fund, shown as a % of your money. €0.20 per €100 a year at 0.20%. Lower is cheaper. More → . Simplicity: one purchase gives you broad exposure, with no need to pick individual winners. ETFs still carry market risk — they can fall in value — but they remove the all-eggs-in-one-basket risk of a single share.