Who Invented the first index fund?

Index investing has become a widely popular investment strategy in recent decades. Its origins can be traced back to the mid-20th century when financial pioneers introduced the concept of using market indexes as benchmarks for investment performance. Stock market indexes have been around for over 130 years, and over that time their role in the market has expanded dramatically. The initial use case of summarizing equity market performance morphed into benchmarking portfolio performance, and with the advent of index investing, became a mechanism to guide equity allocations. The evolution of index investing has transformed the way investors approach the financial markets and has had a profound impact on the investment industry as a whole. The first stock market indexes were constructed and published in the late 19th century by financial newspapers as day-to-day summaries of stock market fluctuations. To our knowledge, the first daily index was published in 1884 by Dow Jones and Company’s Customer’s Afternoon Letter (the precursor to the Wall Street Journal). Under the name “Dow Jones”, it became the world’s most famous index. The S&P 500 Index was initially introduced in 1923