Financial Planning Consultant is independent from all companies that they recommend, and therefore in theory can evaluate different financial products objectively. In other words, they represent their client’s best interest, rather than the Financial Institutions.

An index is a statistical indicator that reflects the value of a group of securities meeting a fixed set of criteria. Indices often serve as barometers for a given market or industry and are commonly used as benchmarks against which financial or economic performance is measured.
Stock and bond indices illustrate the changes in value of an overall market, sub-segment, sector or region. Some of the world’s best-known indices are the DAX, the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index, the Nikkei-225-index and the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI).

An index fund is a passively managed mutual fund that aims to copy the composition of a specific market index. An index fund thus tries to mirror the performance of this specific index.