If you operate like the average investor, your holdings may be returning less than you think. A Morningstar study found that investors lost about 15% of their returns over 10 years. Put differently, dollars invested in ETFs and mutual funds returned 6.3% annually, while the funds themselves returned about 7.3%.
The gap shows how the money we put into investment vehicles often underperforms them in practice. This can add up to significant lost income over the long term. But there are steps you can take to avoid this loss, as detailed below.
