Vanguard S&P Small-Cap 600 Index Fund Institutional Shares (VSMSX)

Investing is about risk and return. Every investment comes with the possibility of a gain or a loss, and because risk is the measure of the magnitude of the fluctuation in your investment value, there is a direct correlation between your level of risk and how much you possibly can gain - or lose - with the investment.Commonly, we say that the higher the risk, the higher the possibility of larger gains, but similarly, the higher the possibility for large losses.

Given the risk of the selected asset, this section shows the likelyhood of the fluctuation of your investment value within a year. It shows your current balance, as well as the likely ranges within which your balance is to fluctuate within the year.

This section shows the expenses and fees you have to pay for being a fund's shareholder. The graphical scale also give you a sense of how low or high these expenses are. Additionally, we show you how much money you effectively had to pay in fees, and the real cost of ownership for the fund: that is the total amount of fees, and the lost interest earned on those fees. A fund's operational expenses are usually covered by charging the shareholders a so-called "expense ratio". This is expressed as a percentage per year of your total invested amount. This can quickly add up to a substantial amount of money you pay to the fund, making a significant dent into your chance at a higher investment return. Be also mindful that you have to pay these fees whether the fund's share price goes up or down.

Note that fees do not apply to stocks.

This section shows the returns based style analysis. Essentially we compare the returns of this asset against the returns of 30 varying indices to determine the asset's style. It provides you with a better idea on what drives the performance of this asset. We also give you an idea of how consistent the style is through time as shown by the area graph.

This section shows the asset's risk and a comparative scale of the typical risk level of several investment strategies so you know where you stand relative to the market. The risk is expressed in percentage, between 0% (no risk at all) to potentially more than 100% (extremely risky). Don't be fooled by the scale: 30% risk historically corresponds to a lot of risk...

Risk is the chance that a given investment's return will be different than the return originally expected. You may hope to get a return of 5% on a specific investment, and practically the risk is that your return might turn out to be 7% instead (lucky you!) or just a meager 1%, or even a loss. We are all familiar with the daily fluctuations of the price of a company stock: the larger the fluctuations, the larger the uncertainty of its future value. This is often interpreted as 'risk'. In technical terms, the risk of an individual investment is the standard deviation of its historical return.