15. Let's look at an ETF now: Standard & Poor's 500 with a ticker symbol SPY. Go back to the U.S. Markets link under the CNBC logo at the top left and select Funds & ETFS, the last option. A direct link is: https://www.cnbc.com/funds-and-etfs. ETFs are exchange traded funds which trade like a typical stock, but are similar to a mutual fund in that an EFT holds a collection of shares from a number of different companies. This allows you to spread out your risk by diversifying your portfolio of investments. For example, when you buy one share of the exchange traded fund SPY you are buying a tiny bit of the top 500 US corporations. Look for SPY in the list, it may be the first one, but you might have to scroll down also. Click on the SPY symbol to get to a summary page with a graph. What is the SPY one-year percent change (1 Year % Change)? It should be up from a year ago; however, recessions, international tensions, pandemics can all influence the stock market