An index fund is an investment you can pick that is a basket of individual stocks. They are an easy way to get diversification in your portfolio and historical

An index fund is an investment you can pick that is a basket of individual stocks. They are an easy way to get diversification in your portfolio and historically have beat out portfolios where people actively picked out their own mix of individual stocks. A lot of the investors in the world are just investing in index funds which has artificially inflated the value of the stocks in each index fund. When an investment has an inflated valuation that does not match the fundamentals of the underlying business behind the stock, there is a bubble.