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A fund that holds many stocks or other assets and trades on an exchange like one stock. One share gives you a small slice of everything the fund holds. Many ETFs follow an index: SPY tracks the S&P 500, a list of about 500 large U.S. companies. ETFs do not report earnings of their own, but many pay dividends.
Example:
Buy one share of SPY. You now own a tiny piece of about 500 companies.