By Ben StevermanJack Bogle knew how to make a nuisance of himself.What he meant to most people in investment business was that he was a royal pain in bottom, said Jeremy Grantham, co-founder of Boston-based Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo, or GMO.By time of Bogles death, on Wednesday at age 89, his victory was nearly total.
Low-cost index funds, idea he championed, are everywhere, from giant pensions and endowments to millennials 401(k) accounts.
Vanguard Group, firm Bogle founded, is now a $5 trillion giant.This year, investing industry will hit a symbolic tipping point: The amount of assets in US index funds is almost certain to surpass amount in actively managed products for first time.
Meanwhile, Vanguard collected inflows of $218 billion in 2018, Bloomberg data show.
The rest of US fund industry lost $237 billion.Bogle, who suffered first of six heart attacks at age 31 and ended up with a heart transplant, didnt seem like such a threat to Wall Street when he started Vanguard back in 1975.Few alliesPeople thought he was crazy.
Practically his only allies were academics, economists like Nobel Prize winner Paul Samuelson and Princeton Universitys Burton Malkiel, who thought idea of index funds made a lot of sense.
Money managers were charging big fees for privilege of racking up mediocre returns.
Bogles concept was simple.
Since it was nearly impossible to consistently beat market, why try Just buy a large basket of stocks (or bonds), skip cost of hiring an investment pro, and patiently collect market return as savings from those lower fees compounded.Nice idea, but could anyone make money offering it Other investment firms experimented with index funds, to underwhelming results.
Clients didnt seem to be clamoring for product at a time when Wall Streets marketing was all about investing prowess.
Batterymarch Financial Management, a firm Grantham co-founded before GMO, tried it.
One barrier, beyond client skepticism, Grantham says, was that it was destined to be a very, very low profit business.And that - low fees, low profit margins, letting investors keep more of their money - was Bogles entire point.Standard loadThe first-ever index mutual fund, accessible to all investors, not just institutional clients, was a flop.
With Bogle expecting investment of as much as $150 million, Vanguard launched it with just $11.3 million.
Even his fans in academia werent pleased.
Samuelson complained about funds 6 percent sales load, which was standard at time.
Loads were used to pay for kickbacks to financial advisers so theyd recommend funds to their mostly unaware clients.
Vanguard eliminated its loads in 1977, a virtuous move that nonetheless made it harder, at least at first, to attract assets.Perhaps more disappointing was funds performance.
In late 1970s, three-quarters of active-fund managers were still delivering better returns than Bogles index fund.
By early 1980s, half were outperforming index fund, despite lower fees.
Then, later in 80s, tide turned, and Vanguards index fund began outpacing vast majority of active funds.Technologys roleTechnology played an underappreciated role.
Index funds have to buy and sell hundreds of securities every day, to deal with investment flows, re-invest dividends and generally keep up with index theyre meant to track.
Vanguards first fund could only handle about half of Standard Poors 500 index.
By 1992, computers and trading systems had advanced to point where Vanguard could launch its Total Stock Market Index Fund, which is now a $672 billion behemoth that buys every single US stock, 3,500 in all, for fees as low as 0.04 percent per year.Another reason Vanguard was able to turn tide was fierce competition active-fund managers started facing from each other.
Investors were eager to jump into surging markets of 1980s and 1990s.
Celebrity fund managers multiplied, and they were also up against new, high-tech hedge funds, which built powerful computers and hired scientists and math Ph.D.s to run them.
The arms race made it more and more difficult to outsmart market.Finance jokeBy now, its become almost a joke on Wall Street.
Every so often, some pundit predicts that this year, finally, will be a stock-pickers market, when skilled individual stock selection can finally triumph over quants and indexes.
But with each passing year, mutual funds, and even hedge funds, fall further behind plain old index fund.As Vanguard won more and more assets, along with respect of many personal-finance experts, it was competing against a financial industry that loved to steer clients into higher-fee products.
Vanguard, which Bogle had set up as a cooperative, would periodically cut fees, passing savings from efficiencies and economies of scale to its customers.
Other fund companies mostly held line.Then, investors started asking about fees, particularly after steep market declines of 2000-2002 and 2008.
Only most unsophisticated investors would still put up with an adviser who recommended load funds.
Pensions, endowments and, crucially, 401(k) retirement plans pushed more and more assets into index funds.Fee warSuddenly, Vanguard started facing serious competition of its own.
A fee war broke out, with players like Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab angling to cut costs closer and closer to zero.The craze for indexes took on qualities that made Bogle unhappy.
In his later years, when he was no longer in charge at Vanguard, he railed against exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, which are index products that can be bought and sold like stocks.
He worried ETFs encouraged sort of wasteful trading that hurt investor returns.
Few agreed with Bogle - even at Vanguard, which offered its own ETFs - and funds now hold $3.5 trillion in assets in USBogles philosophyStill, Bogles philosophy -- that trying to beat market was futile, especially if youre an investing amateur - was winning day.
His advice became conventional wisdom for big companies setting up 401(k)s.
They encouraged workers to buy and hold index funds with low fees, and discouraged them from getting in their own way by trading too much.
Today, a generation of workers is plowing its retirement savings into index funds, whether they realize it or not.The ultimate savings for American investor from Bogles persistence may amount to more $1 trillion, according to an estimate by Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas.
And windfall will continue to rise as benefits of lower fees compound year after year after year.Bogle was a folk hero to investing nerds and an outspoken enemy of stock-pickers and self-serving financial advisers.
But he wasnt a household name.
The biggest beneficiaries of Bogles invention are regular investors who might have no idea who he was.