Bogle and the genius of indexing.

Jack Bogle passed away this week and the investing world lost one of the most important figures in modern history.   Bogle's contribution to investing is simple but of profound importance.  He showed that an index fund, run entirely passively, could outperform most actively managed funds in the long run. 

I've long been a very strong proponent of indexing.  I've posted heavily on the topic here in this blog, but a quick recap of why indexing is so brilliant is probably in order.

In any given year (ignoring costs), about 50% of all active equity managers will beat the market, while 50% or so will trail the market.   This has to be the case.  It cannot be the case that the majority of equity managers beat the market, because the market is largely actively managed.  Simply put - there has to be winners and losers. 

In reality however, more than 50% of active managers trail the market because of trading costs and fees.  These costs can easily be 1-3% or more per year, enough to cause a significant drag on performance.  Bogle realized that if you just bought "the market" and didn't trade and didn't spend money on active management, you could reduce the total costs to a nearly trivial amount, less that 1/10 of a percent.   The simple outcome of this strategy is that the "indexed" fund will beat more than 50% of all active funds in a given year, and in the long run will beat most active funds.

You might be thinking, surely 1 or 2 percent isn't that much?   Well, consider an investor with a million dollars: 1% is $10,000 per year every year.  This is a significant performance drag.

Or consider if you take $1,000 and compound for 40 years at 8% you'll end up with about $21,724.  But if you compound only at 7%, just 1% less per year, your original $1,000 will only grow to $14,974.   The 8% investment is worth 45% more than the 7% investment. 

This is why, in the long run, indexing always wins.  It's why I personally am 97% indexed and why I strongly advocate it for all investors (including pension funds).

And this is Bogle's legacy.  He's enabled many ordinary investors to be much wealthier than they would have bee had they stuck with active managers.

As Mark Hulbert says:

"... he bet his entire career and his mutual-fund firm on the notion that the vast majority of active fund managers would be unable to beat a simple index fund. And there was hardly a single calendar year since 1976, when he created the Vanguard 500 Index Fund in which he was wrong."

The stupidest thing you can do with your money.

In a recent episode, the Freakanomics podcast talks about why you should index.  It's a great show - check it out: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/stupidest-money/


Interestingly, Anthony Scaramucci is interviewed as being an advocate of active management (he's the guy who ended up being fired by Trump after 10 days).  Scaramucci's arguments for active management don't really make any sense - they are based on the idea that financial advisors and active management are the same thing.   They are not.  A good financial advisor who understands indexing is well worth the fees.  Such an advisor can help in tax planning, retirement, college savings etc and provide real value to clients without ever selling an actively managed product.

You can't consistently beat the market. Just ask Harvard.

Harvard University has been lamenting a substantial loss in the value of their endowment.  Apparently about $2 Billion.   See:http://www.chronicle.com/article/What-a-2-Billion-Loss-Really/237965

Harvard has chased all sorts of exotic strategies, including private equity and hedge funds and yet - to quote the above article:

"...if Harvard had passively invested in a standard mix of 60 percent stocks and 40 percent bonds, it would have gotten a higher rate of return — 8.9 percent over the past five years, versus 5.9 percent with its active in-house management, according to The Boston Globe."

What's worse, is that Harvard was paying its money managers millions to come up with these strategies.   While Harvard is clearly one of the premier academic institutions in the world, this status does not give it the ability to beat the market.  Other institutions (I'm looking at you NC Pension Fund) would do well to learn from this.

John Oliver on retirement plans

John Oliver on retirement plans, advisors and fees.

His conclusion:  Index Funds.    Now where have you heard that before?

Bogle on the Buffet Hedge Fund bet

Jack Bogle opines on why Buffet is winning the hedge fund vs index fund challenge.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/jack-bogle--here-s-why-buffett-will-win-his--1-million-bet-against-a-hedge-fund-manager-200012224.html

Why I am supporting Ron Elmer for Treasurer

Ron Elmer is running for the democratic nomination for the NC Treasurer.   Ron Elmer is highly qualified for the job.  Here's why:

• He has extensive investment management experience managing institutional mutual funds and index funds.  He's even managed index funds for the State Pension Fund.
• He's very well qualified.  An NYU MBA, a CFA and a CPA.   
• He's not a career politician - he doesn't want to use the Treasurer's office to climb the political ladder.
• He's a really nice guy.

Ron's basic platform is to save the state millions of dollars by bringing the management of the pension fund in house and basically firing all the external managers.   Once in house, he plans to index the entire $90 billion portfolio.    I think that this is a brilliantly simple way that the state can save probably between $500 - $900 Million per year.

Let me state that again:   Ron's plan can save the State at least half a billion dollars per year and potentially close to a billion dollars per year.

This sounds like crazy money, but Wall Street investment firms have been enjoying this payola from North Carolina (and many other states) for years.   It's time to put a stop to this madness.

I've put together a short paper that details my back of the envelope computations which show that these savings are reasonable and there should be no loss in performance of the fund as a result.  In fact, I would expect that the fund will perform better.

Click here for a copy of my report.   

Click here for a copy of a presentation that I did for the State Employees Association a couple of years ago.

And don't forget to vote for Ron and spread the word.

Thanks

Reform needed at the NC Pension Fund.

Andy Silton has a nice piece in today's N&O in which he criticizes the management of the state pension fund.  First - the information provided by the Treasurer's office is awful.   It is almost impossible to figure out where the money is invested and what the fees are and the information is always out of date.

Second, the Treasurer seems to be pursuing a "pick winners" strategy.   This is a fool's errand.   You can't reliably pick winners in today's financial markets.  All you will end up doing is paying high fees to so-called "experts" and getting average performance in exchange.   A mountain of evidence shows this to be true.

What is worse is that the pension fund continues to move into Private Equity and Hedge Funds - both of which are incredibly expensive and do not provide the return for the risk and costs.  As Andy correctly points out, the risk of these assets is understated because they don't trade daily in the markets.

I've been making these arguments for a few years now and during that time the fees paid by the pension fund have gone up from about $300 million/year to about $500 million/year.  

This isn't small change.   The state of North Carolina pays half a billion dollars a year to Wall Street firms who provide worse performance than if the State just indexed the money.  At some point you have to question whether the Treasurer actually understands basic finance.

How many active funds beat the SP 500 over the past 8 years?

4   

That's out of more than 7,000 mutual funds.

Remind me again why anyone uses active management?


Source:  http://thereformedbroker.com/2015/05/12/how-many-active-mutual-funds-have-beaten-the-sp-500-in-8-consecutive-years/

Buffett's bet against a Hedge Fund manager

We're in year 6 of Warren Buffett's million dollar bet against Hedgie Ted Seides.   Buffett bet that the S&P 500 index would crush a portfolio of hedge funds hand picked by Seides.

So far, Buffett is correct.  The index is stomping on the hedge funds.

Of course, there's no surprise here.  If you are interested in long term capital appreciation a portfolio of indexed stocks will virtually always outperform a fund that is charging 2/20 and is run by people who think that they are smarter than the market.

What's amusing is that Seides is now coming up with excuses for why it's not a fair competition.  You can read them here. 

Thanks to my accounting colleague, Don for the link.

Do the portfolios of finance professionals underperform?

Apparently, using data from "the yelp of investing", it has been discovered that finance professionals underperform advertising and tech professionals when it comes to investing.

At first blush, this finding seems consistent with yet another failure for finance.  But I think the truth is somewhat less exciting.  I am guessing that finance professionals are far more diversified and more conservative in their investments.   A point that is raised in the article.

Further on there is discussion of a research paper that finds that finance experts don't beat regular folks when it comes to mutual funds.  Again, I don't think that there is much surprise here for the simple reason that markets are efficient.  Being an expert in finance doesn't make you able to predict the future.

Ironically, being an expert in finance does tell you that you shouldn't pay big fees to experts in finance to run your money.   You should index.

Buffet on indexing.

Mr. Buffet recommends indexing

Via: Andy Silton

Buffet vs Hedge Funds.

In a 10 year, $1 million bet against a hedge fund manager, Warren Buffet put his money on an S&P 500 index fund.  We're now in year 6.  Guess who's ahead?

HT: Rob.

Refuting an attack on indexation

Probably the best money management blog out there is Andy Silton's "Meditations on Money Management".  Andy is a retired professional, who although in his earlier days was an active manager, now fully subscribes to the notion that you can't beat the market.

Andy's latest post [ here ] - is a rebuttal to a piece in the New York Times profiling Robert Olstein who is an active manager.  Olstein lives in a world where anecdotes and stories carry more weight than hard facts and data.  This is the world that most active managers live in.   They'll claim that of course, most people can't beat the market, but a few can - and they are part of the chosen few.   They'll point to a few good years of returns and say "see how I beat the market?"

All active manager's have stories and anecdotes about how they can beat the market, and if you believe them, then you'll hand over your cash and pay the 1% management fee.   But if you're smart, you'll index.   In the long run you'll be richer - because of the hard facts of the mathematics of finance.  No anecdotes needed.

Andy Silton on Money Management Fees.

Great article in the Sunday paper.  

As an exercise - take the dollar amount of your 401-K and managed retirement assets and try to figure out what fees you are paying.  If, and that's a big if, you can figure this out, think about whether you are getting value for your money.

If you think you are then you are either drinking the Wall Street kool aid, or you are indexing.

The retirement gamble

The investorcookbooks blog has an interesting post on a recent Frontline TV documentary called "the Retirement Gamble"   The documentary is a must see for anyone saving for retirement - i.e. pretty much everyone.  

The take away is: Buy Index Funds and avoid fees.  Of course readers of this blog will know that I preach those two ideas every chance I get.

Here's the link to the documentary - you can watch it on your computer.

The case for passive investing

This is a great video advocating for passive (or index fund) investing.   The film is made for a UK audience but is applicable to anyone who invests anywhere.  

While the film was funded by an investment management firm, it is accurate and not misleading.  The points they make are correct and are borne out by the academic research.

Finally it is worth watching just because you get to see some of the big names in finance - Jack Bogle, Ken French, David Booth (Chicago B School named for him), and of course Bill Sharpe - the guy who developed the CAPM and got the Nobel.

Via: Reformed Broker

Mutual Fund Fees - You get what you don't pay for...

Simple, clear, video on the evils of mutual fund fees.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/video/2013/mar/19/mutual-fund-animated-guide-video

Bursting the bubble of investment management riches

An interesting article on the relevance of active management.  

Interesting because it is largely correct in that active management has been shown time and time again to be a loosing endeavor compared to indexing, and interesting because it heavily quotes Ron Elmer, a good friend on mine.

NC Pension Fund and Facebook.

Unfortunately the State of NC bought a load of Facebook stock at the IPO.  I have no idea why - it seemed to me and to many others that this IPO was overpriced.

Now the State Treasurer is suing Facebook and the underwriters of the stock claiming that they were mislead.

I have a couple of observations on this:

First if the Pension Fund was indexed, we wouldn't have this issue. An indexed portfolio wouldn't be jumping into overpriced IPOs.  I've argued before that indexing this and most pension funds is the way to go.

Second, there are questions being raised about potential conflicts of interest.  I'm in no position to make judgments either way on this, except that I think that more transparency is always the best answer.

Do active managers earn their fees?

From Gene Fama...the answer, as readers of my blog well know, is no they do not.