My husband is just opening a rollover 401K with Merrill Lynch...We want to put some of the rollover into an index fund...

To add what the other posters said, might I suggest that if you are going to keep part of your money in an S&P500 index fund, that you bypass ML altogether and invest it directly in the particular fund. This way, you will save yourself being hassled by your broker about your choice of an index fund. BTW, an S&P500 index fund is considered a diversified large-cap growth and income fund. Fidelity, Vanguard, etc. will be quite happy to open a rollover IRA for you and invest your money in an index fund without taking an upfront commission.

If you ever want to invest that money in stocks, in the future, ML will be happy to transfer it out of your fund for you. The downside is that it will take a week or so to happen, instead of overnight if you had invested through ML.

Zev