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Hard-won lessons about money and investing

mattcutts.com

261–264 of 264 posts

Re: Hard-won lessons about money and investing

#261
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vanguard is owned by their funds, so incentives are aligned with the shareholders of the funds. They are very different than most fund companies.

That's a bit of a gimmick. Management still pays themselves from the % of invested funds, not fund performance. Same issue as with a nonprofit -- the corporate profit structure is only one source of moral hazard.

Their expense ratios are really low. Wellington, an actively managed fund, has an expense ratio of .25%. Their non-actively managed funds, such as the Index500, are under .2%. Those are very low fees compared to other similar investments. To compare with doing it yourself, at retail trade rates, that's about one potential trade per year per $2-3k invested.

Vanguard actively moves clients from their baseline funds to the lower cost/higher minimum Admiral versions.

I just don't see moral hazard in Vanguard, compared to other financial firms with remotely similar capabilities and offerings.

Re: Hard-won lessons about money and investing

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your posts except for a couple things: - Most asset managers will try to rip you off, but Vanguard's culture and alignment with your interests makes them a different/better company than anyone else I know of. - I don't know if you were joking when talking about buying shorts, but it's really hard to time the stock market.

Actually, if there really is a 50% drop every 7-10 years, I'd be very surprised if you couldn't make a killing buying cheap, far-out-of-the-money shorts.

[deleted]

Re: Hard-won lessons about money and investing

#263
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit of a gimmick. Management still pays themselves from the % of invested funds, not fund performance. Same issue as with a nonprofit -- the corporate profit structure is only one source of moral hazard.

Their expense ratios are really low. Wellington, an actively managed fund, has an expense ratio of .25%. Their non-actively managed funds, such as the Index500, are under .2%. Those are very low fees compared to other similar investments. To compare with doing it yourself, at retail trade rates, that's about one potential trade per year per $2-3k invested. Vanguard actively moves clients from their baseline funds to…

Edit, but too late to actually edit --

The expense ratio of Admiral Index 500 is .05%, not .2%. So even better than I'd remembered.

Re: Hard-won lessons about money and investing

#264

I was a #1-ranked stock analyst (computer software and services industry) in the 1980s. I took a portion of my parents' money and doubled it in 18 months, by splitting it among 5 stocks that went to 4X, 3X, 3X, 0X and 0X. Then I left Wall Street, told them I no longer was in a position to do such stock picking, and they should put their money into Vanguard index funds. They were not pleased, and felt I let them down…

> it among 5 stocks that went to 4X, 3X, 3X, 0X and 0X What stocks?

Symbolics was one of the bankruptcies. American Management Systems and Lotus were two of the winners. I've forgotten the others.
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