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Welcome to the new RBC iShares digital experience.

Find all things ETFs here: investment strategies, products, insights and more.

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Anna Nerys: What’s bigger: the amount people spend on their pets every year, the total ticket sales from Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour… Or the total amount of money invested in ETFs globally?

Guest: No one is doing it more than Taylor, I think…

Anna Nerys: Sorry, Swifties -- the answer is ETFs at more than $11 trillion globally. That's nearly 70 times more than the Eras Tour ticket sales and pet-spending combined.

Today we’re going to break it down: what exactly IS an ETF, why are they becoming so popular, how do they relate to the perfect restaurant order, and what it all means for you.

I’m Anna Nerys. Around here, there are No Bad Questions.

What is an ETF?

ETF stands for Exchange-Traded Fund. Okay, that’s a mouthful. Let’s break it down a little more.

Exchange-Traded means that it’s bought and sold on a stock exchange, the same way you might buy or sell a share of a stock like Apple. Being traded on an exchange also means that ETFs can be bought or sold any time the exchange is open, giving investors flexibility to get in or out whenever they want during market hours.

Fund means it’s not just one stock, it’s a collection of them. It could be dozens or hundreds of stocks. It could also be made up of other assets like bonds or commodities. But the main takeaway here is that they’re all bundled together in one basket.

So, put simply - an ETF is a bundle of investments — for instance, stocks — that you can buy or sell on an exchange just like a stock.

Here’s how I think of it: ETFs are the appetizer sampler of the investment world…

Hear me out. Let’s say I’m dining at a restaurant with $30 to spend. I can risk it all on one dish — maybe chicken parm. Might be crispy and cheesy… Or soggy and sad. A lot of risk in that order. That’s like investing all of your money in one stock.

Now, what I could do…. And let’s be honest, what I usually do… Is get the appetizer sampler. That sampler is going to have some steady favorites — fries, always a strong performer — wings, pretty tough to go wrong — maybe a riskier thing like fried pickle chips (that’s a vegetable, right?)… By ordering this sampler, I know I’m getting a nice spread of options that are going to fill me up even if not everything is a home run.

Don’t get me wrong, hopefully they’re all good — but what I’m doing here is diversifying — spreading that $30 across a mix of foods – instead of a single bet on one dish.

That’s what ETFs do — instead of betting on one company, you buy a bundle of them in one purchase. So, your money is spread out, so the risk of one bad pick will likely matter less.

By definition, investing carries risk. Before you spend your money on ANYTHING — even an appetizer sampler at a restaurant — you should give it careful consideration. ETFs are a convenient way to start investing, but always do your homework.

Remember, when it comes to investing, there are No Bad Questions.