Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund (BND)

The three core principles of effective index fund investing

Index funds — a portfolio or group of stocks designed to mimic the performance of existing stock market indexes (^DJI, ^IXIC, ^GSPC) — generally have a 97% chance of outperforming regular markets based on portfolio composition, according to Ferri Investment Solutions CEO Richard Ferri, CFA. Ferri, the host of The Bogleheads on Investing podcast, joins Yahoo Finance Live to walk through the fundamentals of index investing and creating a long-term investment strategy for one's portfolio. "The discipline part is to fully implement that and maintain it basically over the rest of your life. There will be times in life where you're transitioning from working to retirement where you may wish to have more say fixed-income or bonds in your portfolio than equity at that point, but those are just adjusting the sales on this philosophy of indexing that you've created," Ferri states. "It is a lifelong investment strategy that works for basically everybody including some of the very largest pension funds out there," For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Wealth! Editor's note: This article was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.