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This week marks the 50th Anniversary of Vanguard, and through that time, John Bogle’s company has saved investors on the order of One Trillion dollars – yes the total savings approach a huge T, not just B’s!!!
Vanguard serves over 50 million investors, has over $9 Trillion assets under management, and has fund expenses that average a meager $0.07%. We have about half our assets invested through Vanguard, and particularly appreciate that Mr. Bogle’s fee savings have been adapted across large segments of the brokerage industry.
For a great post summarizing Vanguard’s Trillion Dollar savings contribution to us all, check out Nick Maggiulli’s Be Minimally Extractive here:
For the history of index fund investment, check out the documentary film “Tune Out the Noise” on YouTube. An initiative at Wells Fargo in 1964 called the Investment Decision Making Project, led by John “Mac” McQuown and a group of economists from the University of Chicago created the first institutional index fund for Samsonite pension. 6 of them were awarded the Nobel Prize. Because Wells Fargo could not be an investment bank due to the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, the CEO permitted the group to give the index portfolio construction to John Bogle for free. Bogle’s launch of the index fund in 1976 flopped and was called “Bogle’s Folly” for a while. The rest is history.
The original U of Chicago team lives on as Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA), and is still active in launching innovative portfolios to compete with index investments. DFA actually bested Vanguard in small cap value and emerging market funds (see Ben Felix’s YouTube Dimensional vs Vanguard).
Like many have already posted, “Never have so many, benefited so much, and owed so much, to a single individual.”
I became a Vanguard client in 2013, and I have never looked back. From my initial 4 Fund Strategy, to the 3 Fund Strategy, to my current 2 Funds and Annuities Strategy.
All my money is at Vanguard!
This is why John Bogle, who I discovered in the nineties when I first started investing, is on my investing Mount Rushmore, along with Christine Benz, and Jonathan. I can’t fathom how much he has saved me in fees over the past thirty years, and then when you calculate the compounded returns …
I have great admiration for John Bogle and what he has done for individual investors. We all owe him a huge debt of gratitude. I just wish the current Vanguard could get its act together with customer service.