<prompt> Human: 1st, i apologize for my ignorance. I consider myself smart, or, at the very least, smarter than the average man but i am very dumb when it comes to investments... no matter how much i read about it. I know the basics and the general stuff about it, like the IRA exists, 401k, you can buy stocks, itll growfall depending on economy, etc etcLooking at this post regarding timing the market not the point of topic here you can actually buy sp500? if so, how? i thought you only buy stocks  <response>: with index mutual funds. you can buy shares of a fund that invests proportionally in all of the stocks in the 500. this is essentially buying the 500 as your shares will perform exactly as the 500 does. 