A passive investment strategy that tracks the total return of a securities index, such as the S&P 500. Robotic indexing offers some unique advantages over active portfolio management. Discipline and style consistency are first and foremost. If you buy an S&P 500 index fund, it will never invest in anything but the S&P 500. That kind of consistency is necessary if you want the asset allocation in your portfolio to be precise. An active fund manager could be guilty of style drift, investing in parts of the market that don’t suit your asset-allocation scheme. Other advantages of indexing are low expenses and tax-efficiency. See "Index Funds." BACK TO TOP