As a Vanguard customer, I can understand why people are so enthusiastic about their products, and have known for a while that passive investment, and Vanguard in particular, was growing while active management was on the decline. At no point did I think the difference in inflows was anywhere close to 8.5x. And it does worry me. I'm familiar with the contention that even having some active players in the market will a…
The more risky effect is that all stocks in an index become more correlated with it over time, leading to larger jumps in single names around earnings seasons when real information is released to the public.