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Jack Bogle, the Man Who Revolutionized Investing, Dies At 89 (marketwatch.com)

Thelasko shares a report from MarketWatch: You can thank Thomas Edison for the light bulb casting light in your home, Henry Ford for your affordable, mass-produced car, and Apple's Steve Jobs for the astonishing computer in your pocket. And Jack Bogle, who died Wednesday [at the age of 89]. The low-cost mutual funds he helped pioneer at Vanguard aren't as sexy or dramatic as other inventions. And you can't really touch or see them. But their effect on everyday lives has been enormous. Bogle's low-cost index funds, and the imitators they have inspired, may have saved ordinary Main Street Americans a staggering $250 billion, or more, in mutual fund fees over the last forty years. According to the Investment Company Institute (ICI), there are now about 450 index mutual funds with around $3.4 trillion in assets. There are also 1,800 exchange-traded funds, also with around $3.4 trillion in assets.

48 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Why the fuck would I thank steve jobs for that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    He didn't invent shit. Pocket computers existed years before the iphone.

    1. Re: Why the fuck would I thank steve jobs for that by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Neither did Edison invent the light bulb.

      Even if he did, I've never seen a carbon filament bulb in my life, so whatever is casting light in my home can't be it.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re: Why the fuck would I thank steve jobs for that by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      I used to work at a smelter which still had original Edison carbon filament bulbs, and they still do. Quality is far better than flawed products

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    3. Re:Why the fuck would I thank steve jobs for that by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      Jobs's engineers designed, improved and invented things, but Steve was just a designer, made things look pretty.

    4. Re:Why the fuck would I thank steve jobs for that by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Jack Bogle didn't invent mutual funds either. Apparently he did come up with some good ideas, though. That more-or-less matches Jobs, I guess.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    5. Re: Why the fuck would I thank steve jobs for that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It isn't really quality, it is just a strong trade off between efficiency and lifetime for filaments. Put a 220 V bulb on 120 V power, and it would last forever, although it will emit a lot less visible light per watt and give off a lot more heat per watt.

      You don't even have to be that extreme, as the lifetime scaling is often like 5-8th power of variables, so small changes to the filament will make them last. You can still get rough service bulbs that last way longer, but expect to spend more on electricity than you would on the replacement light bulbs. Back when the light bulbs were more labor intensive and expensive to make, and electricity was cheap, it made sense to make them last a long time and use a lot of electricity. When electricity got expensive and manufacturing got cheaper, it ends up being cheaper to use less electricity and more bulbs. Unless your bulb is in a hard to reach location then you could get longer lifetime bulbs, but instead people buy the cheapest thing they get and blame some conspiracy for their bulb going out too fast (well, there was the Phoebus cartel, but that was half a century ago).

    6. Re: Why the fuck would I thank steve jobs for that by iggymanz · · Score: 1, Informative

      LOLZ yeah 240V bulbs in 120V supply:

      Halve the voltage, get one quarter the power, and less than 10% the light output because of how filament resistance goes with temp.

      you get a glowing night light.

    7. Re:Why the fuck would I thank steve jobs for that by quenda · · Score: 1

      but Steve was just a designer, made things look pretty.

      No, Jony Ive was the designer. Jobs was the manager and salesman.

    8. Re: Why the fuck would I thank steve jobs for that by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      How does Jack Bogle only have a net worth of 80 million? Compare this to Bill Gates 80 billion...

      Basically, Gates put all his eggs in one basket, and was right. Bogle spread his risk around, but lower risk means lower return.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    9. Re: Why the fuck would I thank steve jobs for that by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      Whoosh.

      The (only) point being made was that it will last a very long time.

      --
      No sig today...
    10. Re: Why the fuck would I thank steve jobs for that by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Halve the voltage, , and less than 10% the light output because of how filament resistance goes with temp.

      Isn't it mostly a matter of radiation balance? One quarter the power should mean 71% of the thermodynamic temperature according to the Stefan-Boltzmann law. The radiation is of course those 25%, the question is how the spectrum shifts. I'm not sure how much it's depending on the initial condition, which hasn't been specified in this case.

      get one quarter the power

      how filament resistance goes with temp

      Sounds like a contradiction; the former seems to assume constant resistance for an ohmic load at half voltage, while the latter seems to claim the opposite.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    11. Re: Why the fuck would I thank steve jobs for that by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      What's their conversion efficiency?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    12. Re:Why the fuck would I thank steve jobs for that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      He didn't invent shit. Pocket computers existed years before the iphone.

      And Edison didn't invent the light bulb, and Ford didn't invent the automobile.

      They all three were instrumental in making each of their respective products popular and help them enter into the mainstream.

    13. Re: Why the fuck would I thank steve jobs for that by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      No, there is a thing about the light needing to be visible. I didn't comment on the energy making the thing a nifty space heater.

    14. Re:Why the fuck would I thank steve jobs for that by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      doesn't matter, those are all wastes of carbon to me

    15. Re: Why the fuck would I thank steve jobs for that by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      I *did* mention that, if you read carefully. Did you calculate it to be 10%?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  2. Thanks Jack. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2
    All my investments are in index funds. Much of it in Vanguard.

    But, still wondering, at what point the Index funds could be gamed?

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Thanks Jack. by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      One of the problems with the Dark Market is that so much money goes into hedge funds which try to exploit data transmission delays, and game the system, since index funds tend to order in large blocks, so they basically steal the arbitrage between the block orders, making the index purchases and sales just a bit more expensive for the index fund investors.

      So you have a point. That said, if you don't trade out of fear, you'll usually be fine, since the bulk of your holdings aren't trading almost all of the time, and thus are not exposed.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    2. Re:Thanks Jack. by The+Original+CDR · · Score: 1

      But, still wondering, at what point the Index funds could be gamed?

      When every retirement account is invested in index funds that mimics the broader market, the next stock market crash will be a shared experience by everyone.

    3. Re:Thanks Jack. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      But, still wondering, at what point the Index funds could be gamed?

      When index funds were first implemented, they were too small to game. But as they became bigger, some investors figured out how to game them.

      Here's how they did it: Buy (or go long on) the 501st stock in the S&P list, while simultaneously selling (or shorting) the 500th. Do this only when they are close enough in value to switch places because of your activity. So the stock you shorted is removed from the S&P 500, compelling the index funds to dump it, driving the price even lower, while the stock you longed is added to the S&P 500, compelling index funds to buy it, driving the price up.

      This no longer works because 1) They have tightened up the criteria for getting added or removed. 2) Everybody knows about it so the expectations of being added/removed are already incorporated into the price of candidate stocks.

    4. Re:Thanks Jack. by The+Original+CDR · · Score: 1

      Never heard of that. I personally prefer to own dividend-paying stocks for the long run.

    5. Re: Thanks Jack. by The+Original+CDR · · Score: 1

      1) I have never declared bankruptcy.
      2) My retirement savings are fine.
      3) I'm not 50.
      4) ...
      5) Fuck off.

  3. real interesting subject by caviare · · Score: 2

    If you are one of those fund managers who makes massive fees, you won't be thanking him. Curiously these index funds exploit the efficiency of the market created by traders and actively traded funds and reduce it by creating vast category of new investors that don't contribute to the valuation effort.

    My hypothesis is that a secondary effect of them is to improve the performance of those who are prepared to research. The tertiary effect is that people drift back to actively managed funds. The net effect is that the market achieves balance, not only between those who buy and sell, but also between those who spend time and money trying to value the market and those who can't be arsed.

    1. Re:real interesting subject by ShadowRangerRIT · · Score: 5, Informative

      Except the actively managed fund "experts" aren't actually any better at predicting the market. After fees, actively managed funds underperform low fee index funds with similar investment goals two-thirds of the time. And no, that doesn't mean one-third of actively managed funds are better than index funds; the overperforming funds change each year, and over 10 year periods, and the index funds win over 90% of the time.

      So your premise is that index funds are free riders benefiting from the research of more informed investors, yet if that were the case, they should, by definition, underperform the actively managed funds since the index funds should in theory be buying lower and selling higher (since the index funds are always riding coattails, as it were, buying after others buy, and selling after they sell). And all that money in index funds should, by your theory, be making informed investment choices even more lucrative. Yet that's not how it goes in practice. In practice, even as the fees on actively managed funds have gone down, they've continued to underperform the index funds. The only way your theory jives with reality is if the majority of the so-called "informed" investors, including professional fund managers, have no real idea what they're doing (Note: Not going to dispute that possibility).

      --
      $_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
    2. Re:real interesting subject by caviare · · Score: 2

      That actively managed funds underperform the index fund after fees is not inconsistent with the hypothesis that they may overperform them before fees. My hypothesis is that the active fund managers and not their investors get the benefit of their research. As you say the fees on actively managed funds have decreased, however I do not think they can ever be as low as those on indexed funds. Not in the long term anyway, otherwise the manager is working for nothing.

      I doubt you are claiming that if everyone invested in the index or randomly, there wouldn't be any opportunities for those who research.

      My claim is that before the rise of index funds investors were paying way too much for the research of active fund managers, the effect of the index funds has been to reduce what active fund managers can charge for it, and if you are right, it may be that their investors are still paying too much.

      I don't think it's controversial that index funds are taking a free ride on traders and active fund managers. After all the price is determined by the competition between these people to make a buck at each others expense. As a investor in index funds myself, my attitude is ha ha ha, you people do all this work. As a result of your hubris I get the benefit of the valuation that occurs as a result of the competition.

  4. 10 million millionaires in the US in 401k index fu by raymorris · · Score: 5, Informative

    Boring, low-cost mutual funds like the Vanguard funds are how about 10 million Americans have become millionaires. Mustn't they've held Vanguard or similar funds inside their 401K or other retirement plan. That's most millionaires.

    Other interesting facts about millionaires:

    33% of millionaires never made $100,000 in any year.
    Most made less than $150K.

    Millionaires are no more likely than the average American to have received any inheritance. (21% f people, and 21% of millionaires, inherit any money).

    Less than 1% of millionaires made most of their money in one year, from a particular event. 99% consistently invested over the long term.

    Most commonly held jobs of millionaires:
    Engineer
    Accountant
    Teacher

    88% of millionaires have a bachelor's degree, 52% have a graduate degree. About half are first time graduates - their parents didn't have a degree.
    Of those will have a degree, most went to state schools rather than private schools, and 68% worked their way through school rather than taking out loans.

  5. Re: Insert by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Keep chirping about trump, aspie

  6. Re:Real story by ShadowRangerRIT · · Score: 1

    Exactly how was he responsible for that? He offered a simpler product, at lower cost, to people that were losing other investment and retirement options for reasons he had no control over (the death of pensions). Nobody was forced to use his products. I agree the state of the American retirement system has gone downhill, but you can hardly blame him for making the slower shallower.

    --
    $_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
  7. Re:10 million millionaires in the US in 401k index by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

    Where I'm from, a millionaire is someone who owns a two bedroom condo.

    Two bedroom condos is Silicon Valley

  8. Re:10 million millionaires in the US in 401k index by gwills · · Score: 1

    I have to agree. Looking at income mobility data and the industries and circumstances that are producing NEW millionaires makes the point crystal clear. For example, you don't need to benefit from an inheritance to realizes benefits from having a rich (or even richer-than-average) family. Also, the distribution of those who tend to accumulate wealth is massively skewed. So while you MAY be one of the lucky ones to not have their entire portfolio dissolve when the next financial crises occurs, your path to being rich is still poor, by the standards of the truly wealthy.

  9. Re:10 million millionaires in the US in 401k index by ewibble · · Score: 2

    Yeah, but being a millionaire means very little now, you own your own home and little more. Yeah there are plenty of people who don't but you are by no means rich.

    Also although actively managed funds are a rip off they charge you for their "expert" knowledge but generally under perform the market, and charge you a percentage of what you invested. To be fair they should charge a percentage of what they earn't over the market average (how you would expect monkeys to perform), and if they are below give you the same percentage back.

    Still the cost of passive funds is to high what exactly do they need to do apart from setup the index and get a computer to buy the stock, it should be cents to invest with no ongoing fee. But fund managers/bankers make real fortunes just moving peoples money around and they like it that way.

  10. Re:10 million millionaires in the US in 401k index by raymorris · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The data indicates that having typical middle-class parents raise you, driving to Starbucks in a car loan does tend correlate with the kids doing the same thing. So there is a correlation there - up to typical middle class status.

    Those who do a lot better, millionaires and multi-millionaires, do *not* tend have rich parents, in fact the opposite is true. Multi-millionaires tend strongly to be people who budget and save, and that correlates with *lower* than average income of their parents when they grew up. Those who grow up with upper middle class parents tend to hand out money freely to Starbucks and Apple, and end up in debt or with little wealth. 80% of millionaires came from families that are middle class or lower.

    Let's look at the mega-rich you mentioned. The Forbes 400 is perhaps the best known and best research list of the wealthiest Americans. Of the super-rich (Forbes 400), more had poor parents than had parents that were super rich. Most of these mega-rich built on what their parents or other family members had done. Fred was a millionaire, his son Donald is a billionaire (and a fuckwad).

    One thing the mega rich tend to have in common in that they most often don't have hobbies they are passionate about, close friends, or much else other than money; they have focused on building their business empire and sacrificed other things. That's why I don't want to try to be mega rich. I'm good with $2 million, which doesn't require giving up time with my family - I just drink coffee at home with family rather than at Starbucks.

  11. Re:10 million millionaires in the US in 401k index by rtb61 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Most millionaires were created by inflation. The process by which the banksters steal money from the elderly, basically depreciating their assets, whilst the bankster manipulate funds to promote inflation and generate income based upon that inflation.

    --
    Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  12. Re:10 million millionaires in the US in 401k index by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    For the last 100 years investing an (inflation-adjusted) $5000 per year into the S&P 500 yields between ~$768,000 and $2.2 million (in inflation-adjusted dollars) after 40 years, on average. So tell me how putting a few thousand per year into the stock market won't make me rich?

  13. Re:10 million millionaires in the US in 401k index by ranton · · Score: 1

    Mostly this just illustrates the shifting definition of being a millionaire. The still most common definition is someone with a million dollars in assets, but as you have pointed out that is no longer a significant amount of money. It represents about $30-40k per year in retirement income (increasing with inflation). But the term is more frequently being used to describe someone who consistently makes $1 million per year in income. This requires either a very high paying job or over $25 million in assets. It probably won't be long until the latter definition is more common, because it more accurately reflects what people have in mind when using the term millionaire.

    --
    -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
  14. Net worth is the definition for the figures by raymorris · · Score: 1

    To my mind, borrowing a million dollars doesn't make you a millionaire, it just makes you in debt. So the definition uses for the figures above is *net worth*. That is, what you own minus what you owe. The figures I provided are people with a net worth of *at least* a million dollars. The average is about $2.5-$3 million, I don't recall exactly.

    For most millionaires that simply comes down to what's in their 401K or IRA. They've paid off their mortgage and bought their car three years ago with cash, typically.

  15. Re:10 million millionaires in the US in 401k index by raymorris · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Call it what you will, this is the process used by over 80% of people who have at least a million dollars:

    Typical salary $59,000.
    Invest 15%* in boring ass index mutual funds for 25 years and you've got a million dollars.

    Very simple, very boring, very effective.

    * Employer match averages 5% with the worker investing 10%.

  16. $50-60,000/year, no mortgage, little taxes by raymorris · · Score: 1

    > It represents about $30-40k per year in retirement income (increasing with inflation).

    Long term average market return is about 10% minus average inflation is 3.2%. Annual return without depleting your nest egg = $68,000.

    It turns out that returns tend to be higher in years that inflation is higher and lower during periods of low inflation, so the real return (net of inflation) is more stable than you might think.

    Put part of your money in safer, less volatile investments like bonds (not bond funds) and money market funds and you can easily figure on $50,000.

    When average life span was 72, somebody 60 years old had a pretty short investment horizon, so they'd have more than half their money in bonds. These days, even a 70 year old plans for 15 years out, so more stocks makes sense. If you invested for 20-30 years while working, you've got a million so significant drop one year would just mean you spend $30,000 of the principal that year and your kids only get $970,000 when you die. Oh well.

    1. Re:$50-60,000/year, no mortgage, little taxes by nealric · · Score: 1

      The average life span of a 60 year old was never 72. The increase in life expectancy over the last 100 years or so has largely been the product of declining infant mortality and the elimination of many childhood diseases through vaccination (Measles, Polio, etc.). Heck, you can read texts from ancient Greece that talk about 80 years as a normal life span.

    2. Re: $50-60,000/year, no mortgage, little taxes by tomhath · · Score: 1

      Rates fluctuate over relatively short economic cycles (2-5 years). Those don't matter at all while you're saving (because you buy more shares of stock when the market is down so you gain more when it goes back up). To protect yourself after you retire you need to keep about 20% in a money market or T-Bills (essentially as cash). If the market goes down you tap into that cash supply, when it goes back up you add funds back to you cash supply. The market always goes back up, even after the Great Depression or the more recent Great Recession you only needed to avoid selling your investments for a few years.

    3. Re:$50-60,000/year, no mortgage, little taxes by dasunt · · Score: 1

      When average life span was 72, somebody 60 years old had a pretty short investment horizon, so they'd have more than half their money in bonds. These days, even a 70 year old plans for 15 years out, so more stocks makes sense. If you invested for 20-30 years while working, you've got a million so significant drop one year would just mean you spend $30,000 of the principal that year and your kids only get $970,000 when you die. Oh well.

      At a 4% withdrawal rate, even 100% stocks looks pretty safe. If we use historical simulations, and keep things inflation-adjusted, about only 1 out of 20 times would you run out of money in 30 years.

  17. Try dividing by $50,000. Obviously saving is good by raymorris · · Score: 1

    Somebody who has saved up over a million dollars is probably not someone who is going to spend every penny of their investment income as soon as they hit retirement. Having an income of $60,000 doesn't mean you spend $60,000 every year (that's a habit broke people have - spend all of their income or a little more, like I've done before).

    So yeah, you probably wouldn't want to spend $60,000 - that doesn't mean your income isn't $60,000. It just means you decided not to spend 100% of your income.

    But just for fun, pretend you had zero rate of return for twenty years of retirement, which has never happened in the US, and you decided to spend $50,000 every year even with zero income. You've STILL got money to do that for twenty years. You'd end up not leaving anything to your kids, if in fact your retirement was a 20-year recession.

    I wouldn't PLAN to spend my principal most years, but if you've got $1,000,000 at age 55 and $900,000 at age 65, you're still quite okay. You certainly CAN stabilize your income and allow your principal to go up and down a bit with the market.

  18. Ho hum by jd · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Edison stole his invention, exploiting America's refusal to recognize intellectual property rights in other countries. So did many U.S. "inventors".

    Ford was not the first to make cars, or even to make affordable cars. Ford was merely the best at getting his name touted.

    Steve Jobs?? Bwahahaha! The least competent narcissist on the planet? He invented nothing. Nor did Apple come up with portable or handheld computers. Apple were late in the game and overpriced.

    Don't revise history, just to pump up the obituary of someone. It makes a mockery of whatever they actually achieved.

    Applaud REAL achievements.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  19. Re:10 million millionaires in the US in 401k index by misexistentialist · · Score: 1

    and then it's time to die. A million bucks probably not even enough to die with dignity after healthcare expenses

  20. Re:10 million millionaires in the US in 401k index by misexistentialist · · Score: 1

    there is a no fee index fund, and I guess you could create your own with one of the no-fee startups

  21. Not that it matters, but that's a lot of mortages by raymorris · · Score: 1

    That particular example doesn't matter, I don't have a horse in that race.

    I will note that you can't estimate the value of the company based on how many apartments they had - you have to subtract the mortgages on those apartment buildings. If the company buys a building for $20 million (because the competing bidder only offered $17 million), using a mortgage of $17 million, the value of the company is somewhere between $0 and $3 million. $20M asset - $17M loan against it = $3M value.

      Also note that Donald Trump was the president of the company in 1973, so it wouldn't be accurate to choose that as the "before Donald" valuation.

    But again that's because the point. The point is, of the ultra rich:
    More ultra-rich had broke parents than had ultra-rich parents.
    Most ultra-rich people started with a business their family had and grew it.

    Which again is kinda beside the main point, because I don't think many of us want to be obsessive about money, which seems to be key to becoming ultra-rich. We want to be comfortable, money-smart without being totally money focused.

  22. Re: Insert by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

    Trump is the first common-sense patriotic President since Reagan. He's setting up conditions that allow the country to recover, and that's driving traitors like you crazy.

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  23. Re:10 million millionaires in the US in 401k index by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

    99% of long term investors dont [sic] become millionaires

    You pulled that number out of your rear. About 4% of Americans are millionaires, and many of those who aren't now, will be as they grow older. In all likelihood, more millionaires are long-term investors than not.

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