Jack Bogle answers 5 questions in this interview by Ben Steverman of Bloomberg. Bogle offers the best advice he ever received, his views on the current market, and mentions the biggest problem facing the industry today.
He says "The fund industry has turned into a marketing business, and the important thing is getting a lot of assets under management. It’s run for the benefit of financial conglomerates that own most of the large mutual fund management companies."
Most of you know Bogle's story. He founded Vanguard and established an S&P 500 Index fund. The Street referred to it as "Bogle's Folly." That is until it became one of the largest funds in the world. Today, of course, every major fund provider has a similar fund - which should tell you something. Still, it is not something pushed by the fund providers - they would rather naive investors go into their money-making (for the fund providers, not the customers) active funds.
Bogle is a model of consistency in his beliefs. Thank goodness he founded Vanguard as a mutual company owned by the Shareholders. I believe the trend still continues that it is more profitable to invest in the stocks of mutual fund companies than in their funds, even for those mutual fund companies that have some ethics.
ReplyDelete"The fund industry has turned into a marketing business" - no wonder the stocks of fund companies do better than the funds they offer!
ReplyDelete