Tag: Vanguard

The Biggest Myth About Index Investing

John Bogle has done a great job of “selling” index investing.  He started the Vanguard group with the promise that you could invest in the stock market “on the cheap.”  It’s the thing that made the Vanguard group the second biggest fund family in the country.

Selling things based on price is always popular with the public.  It’s the key to the success of Wal Mart,  Amazon, and a lot of “Big Box” stores.

But Bogle based his sales pitch not just on price, but also the promise that if you bought his funds you would do better than if you bought his competition.  He cites statistics to show that the average mutual fund has under-performed the index, so why not buy the index?

The resulting popularity of index investing has had one big, unfortunate side-effect.  It has created the myth that they are safe.

A government employee planning to retire in the near future asked this question in a forum:

“I plan to rollover my 457 deferred compensation plan into Vanguard index funds upon retirement in a few months. I currently have 50% in Vanguard Small Cap Index Funds and 50% in Vanguard Mid Cap Index Funds and think that these are somewhat aggressive, safe, and low cost.”

The problem with the Vanguard sales pitch is that it’s worked too well.   The financial press has given index investing so much good press that people believe things about them that are not true.

Small and Mid-cap stock index funds are aggressive and low cost, but they are by no means “safe.”  For some reason, there is a widespread misconception that investing in a stock index fund like the Vanguard 500 index fund or its siblings is low risk.  It’s not.

But unless you get a copy of the prospectus and read it carefully, you have to bypass the emphasis on low cost before you get to this warning:

“An investment in the Fund could lose money over short or even long periods. You should expect the Fund’s share price and total return to fluctuate within a wide range.”

The fact is that investing in the stock market is never “safe.”  Not when you buy a stock or when you buy stock via an index fund.  There is no guarantee if any specific return.  In fact, there is no guarantee that you will get your money back.  Over the long term, investors in the stock market have done well if they stayed the course.  But humans have emotions.  They make bad decisions because of misconceptions and buy and sell based on greed and fear.

My concern about the soon-to-be-retired government employee is that he is going to invest all of his retirement nest-egg in high-risk funds while believing that they are “safe.”  He may believe that the past 8 years can be projected into the future.  The stock market has done well since the recovery began in 2009.  We are eventually going to get a “Bear Market” and when that happens the unlucky retiree may find that has retirement account has declined as much as 50% (as the market did in 2008).  At some point he will bail out and not know when to get back in, all because he was unaware of the risk he was taking.

Many professional investors use index funds as part of a well-designed diversified portfolio.  But there should be no misconception that index investing is “safe.”  Don’t be fooled by this myth.

Active vs. Passive Investing

There is a great deal of misperception about the merits of passive vs. active investing.

The Difference Between Passive and Active Investing

First, let’s define terms for people who are not familiar with investment styles. Passive investing is buying all the stocks in an index, like the S&P500. Since there is no research involved and the only time an index fund makes a change is when there’s a change in the index, costs are kept low. Active investing, on the other hand, means that a fund manager looks at the stock market and buys those stocks he thinks will go up and avoids those that he believes will go down. Obviously he won’t be right all the time, but if he’s a good manager his selection will result in a fund that will do better than average.

That’s a simple explanation. It doesn’t get into factors such as value vs. growth, risk adjusted returns and other nuances. But it’s the basic concept.

Much is made about expense ratios and average returns. A lot of this confusion is the result of marketing by John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard Funds who made a fortune by promising his clients that they would never do better than average … and that was a good thing.

So why didn’t investing legend Warren Buffett give up stock picking and put his money in an index fund? Because he’s a good stock picker who can add value and get a better return on his money than a stock index. And Buffett isn’t the only one.

Comment from Oppenheimer Funds.

 Indexing clusters investment assets in securities which represent past success, are widely owned, and often fully valued.  Investing is about the future.  Good active investors are adept at uncovering future success.   Compounded over a long time horizons, the difference in so called “terminal wealth” can be very large between passive approaches, average active approaches, and above average active approaches.

Translation: Most indexes, like the S&P 500, represent the best performing stocks of the past, not necessarily the best ones to own in the future.

There are money managers who can add value to a portfolio, a better risk-adjusted return than the market. And there are managers who do worse. Knowing the difference requires years of research and expertise. That is what we at Korving & Company provide to our clients. We create a diversified portfolio of mutual funds tailored to the needs of our clients using funds managed by individuals who have demonstrated that they can add value over and above an index.

Without that, many investors are better off being average.

©  Korving & Company, LLC

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