Many different mutual funds are based on the indexes we've just covered. If you participate in a company retirement plan at work, you may have one or more of them available to you. You can determine which index is being targeted by looking in the summary information typically provided for each fund, or if necessary, by looking in the fund's prospectus. Once you've identified the index being targeted by a particular fund, you can tell by the descriptions in this article which segment of the market that fund focuses on. Constructing an index fund portfolio of your own is within reach at that point. Simply follow our Just-the-Basics formula by dividing the stock portion of your portfolio among the index funds available to you as follows: 20% international, 40% large-company focused, and 40% small-company focused.

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