illustration

Empowering Your Financial Goals

Whether you are investing for growth, dividends, commodity exposure, or international diversification, we offer more than 80 ETFs to choose from.

Get Started

Where Can I Go to Invest?

illustration

Contact a Financial Advisor

Consult with your financial advisor to explore how Global X ETFs may fit your investing objectives.

Buy Online

Invest in Global X ETFs online through any leading brokerage platform with access to U.S. stock exchanges.

ETF Investing 101

ETFs vs. Mutual Funds

Both ETFs and traditional mutual funds are popular choices for investors seeking diversification and convenient access to a wide range of asset classes. But there are important distinctions to consider.

Expense Ratio & Fees

Expense Ratio & Fees

ETFs are typically offered at lower expense ratios, on average. However, there may be additional costs, such as brokerage fees.

Traditional mutual fund expenses are slightly higher than ETFs, on average, potentially including 12b-1 fees and load in/out fees, in addition to management fees.

Tax Efficiency

Tax Efficiency

ETFs are generally more tax efficient than traditional mutual funds, as they typically generate fewer capital gains for investors. This is largely due to their ability to use an in-kind creation/redemption process to limit the amount of taxable events. That said, some ETFs may also use a standard cash creation/redemption, which could make them less tax efficient than ETFs that exclusively use an in-kind creation/redemption process.

Traditional mutual fund managers can take measures to minimize taxes, though sales within the portfolio may cause shareholders to be subject to capital gains taxes each year, even if they have an unrealized loss on their overall investment.

Transparency

Transparency

ETFs are generally required to disclose their holdings on a daily basis. Traditional mutual funds and some ETFs are only required to disclose their holdings quarterly.

Flexibility

Flexibility

ETFs trade on an exchange during market hours (similar to a stock), enabling investors to buy and sell ETFs on an intraday basis, providing access to the market and their investments throughout the trading day. ETFs are bought and sold at the market price, which fluctuates based on trading activity. Because of their similarities with stocks, investors can also buy ETFs with limit orders or utilize stop-loss orders.

Traditional mutual funds do not trade all day; they are only available for purchase or redemption once per day, with all of that day's orders being executed at the same price.

Minimum Investments

Minimum Investments

ETFs are purchased in shares at market price, just like individual stocks. As a result, investors can get started buying a single share or even a fraction of a share, typically for less than $100 — and often much lower.

Traditional mutual funds often have higher minimum initial investments, sometimes reaching into the thousands of dollars.

Subsequent mutual fund investments may not have a minimum to meet.

Frequently Asked Questions

When it comes to investing, there is a lot to unpack — explore how ETFs can help.

  • What is an ETF?

    ETFs, or exchange traded funds, share characteristics of both stocks and traditional mutual funds. They are baskets of securities (potentially including stocks, bonds, options contracts, etc.) that trade on an exchange similar to individual stocks. They can be bought and sold at market price throughout the trading day.

  • What are the potential benefits of ETFs?

    Simplicity, tax efficiency, transparency, and diversification are some characteristics of many ETFs that make them appealing to a wide range of investors. For many people, managing a portfolio of individual stocks is too time consuming, and funds that invest in options contracts, bonds, and/or international securities may be too complex or inaccessible for non-professional investors. There are ETFs that may not exhibit all these traits. Please read the prospectus of any potential investment carefully and consider consulting a financial professional.

  • Does Global X ETFs also offer traditional mutual funds?

    No. We prefer the ETF structure over traditional mutual funds for transparency, liquidity, and tax efficiency.

Additional Resources

Back to top

Investment comparisons are for illustrative purposes only. To better understand the similarities and differences between investments, including investment objectives, risks, fees and expenses, it is important to read the products’ prospectuses.

Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. In addition to the normal risks associated with investing, international investments may involve risk of capital loss from unfavorable fluctuation in currency values, from differences in generally accepted accounting principles or from economic or political instability in other nations. Emerging markets involve heightened risks related to the same factors as well as increased volatility and lower trading volume. Narrowly focused investments and investments in smaller companies typically exhibit higher volatility. There are additional risks associated with investing in commodities and the commodity mining industry.

Technology-themed investments may be subject to rapid changes in technology, intense competition, rapid obsolescence of products and services, loss of intellectual property protections, evolving industry standards and frequent new product productions, and changes in business cycles and government regulation.

Companies can be paying out more than they can support and may reduce their dividends or stop paying dividends at any time, which could have a material adverse effect on the stock price of these companies and the Fund’s performance.

Shares of ETFs are bought and sold at market price (not NAV) and are not individually redeemed from the funds. Brokerage commissions will reduce returns.

Carefully consider the funds’ investment objectives, risk factors, charges, and expenses before investing. This and additional information can be found in the funds’ summary or full prospectus, which may be obtained for Global X Funds by visiting globalxetfs.com. Please read the prospectus carefully before investing.

Global X Management Company LLC serves as an advisor to the Global X Funds. The funds are distributed by SEI Investments Distribution Co. which is not affiliated with Global X Management Company LLC or Mirae Asset Global Investments.