Quotes for All
The simple index fund solution has been adopted as a cornerstone of investment strategy for many of the nation’s pension plans operated by our giant corporations and state and local governments. Indexing is also the predominant strategy for the largest of them all, the retirement plan for federal government employees, the Federal Thrift Savings Plan … Read more
Invest in low-turnover, passively managed index funds… and stay away from profit-driven investment management organizations… The mutual fund industry is a colossal failure… resulting from its systematic exploitation of individual investors… as funds extract enormous sums from investors in exchange for providing a shocking disservice… Excessive management fees take their toll, and manager profits dominate … Read more
A minuscule 4 percent of funds produce market-beating after-tax results with a scant 0.6 percent (annual) margin of gain. The 96 percent of funds that fail to meet or beat the Vanguard 500 Index Fund lose by a wealth-destroying margin of 4.8 percent per annum. David F. Swensen
When you look at the results on an after-fee, after-tax basis over reasonably long periods of time, there’s almost no chance that you end up beating the index fund. David F. Swensen
Our standard prescription for the know-nothing investor with a long-term time horizon is a no-load index fund. I think that works better than relying on your stock broker. The people who are telling you to do something else are all being paid by commissions or fees. The result is that while index fund investing is … Read more
Most of the mutual fund investments I have are index funds, approximately 75%. Charles R. Schwab
Index funds do not trade from security to security and, thus, they tend to avoid capital gains taxes. Burton Malkiel
Index funds are… tax friendly, allowing investors to defer the realization of capital gains or avoid them completely if the shares are later bequeathed. To the extent that the long-run uptrend in stock prices continues, switching from security to security involves realizing capital gains that are subject to tax. Taxes are a crucially important financial … Read more
Index funds have regularly produced rates of return exceeding those of active managers by close to 2 percentage points. Active management as a whole cannot achieve gross returns exceeding the market as a while and therefore they must, on average, underperform the indexes by the amount of these expense and transaction costs disadvantages. Burton Malkiel
Experience conclusively shows that index-fund buyers are likely to obtain results exceeding those of the typical fund manager, whose large advisory fees and substantial portfolio turnover tend to reduce investment yields. Many people will find the guarantee of playing the stock-market game at par every round a very attractive one. The index fund is a … Read more