The creation of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) was one of the best things to happen to stock investing. With a single investment in an ETF, investors can cover a lot of ground that would have otherwise taken hundreds or thousands of individual investments. ETFs are convenient and effective, to say the least.

If you're interested in investing in an ETF and have $1,000 that you can spare to invest -- meaning you already have an emergency fund saved and have paid down any high-interest debt -- the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) is a great option.

The stock market has different benchmarks -- essentially, sets of stocks grouped together for tracking and comparison purposes. The S&P 500 is arguably the most important benchmark in the entire stock market, tracking 500 of the largest public U.S. companies by market capitalization.

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Source Fool.com