Sunday, March 25, 2007

John Bogle interview

John Bogle started up the Vanguard family of mutual funds, known for their industry-shaking low expenses. I use that adjective "industry-shaking" for good reason -- most mutual fund companies want grab as much of your money as they can get away with. Bogle pioneered funds that take as little as possible, making their profits from volume.

Bogle understands that your longterm investment results are directly related to the price you pay, and keep paying in the form of expenses -- both front-end and back-end loads and annual management expenses. So he kept those down as much as possible. All investors owe him a debt of gratitude, because probably expenses at all mutual fund families are lower than they'd be if he hadn't founded Vanguard.

Bogle also made it easy for investors to simply buy the overall U.S. stock market through Vanguard's pioneering S&P 500 index fund.

This article focuses on Bogle's predictions for the stock market, and doesn't even mention the risks of investing in bonds, but he expects poor overall returns.

In my estimation, all the more reason to invest for income, because there's not going to be large returns from capital gains. The article mentions international diversification at the end, since Bogle apparently shares the general pessimism regarding the U.S. dollar's prospects. However, he doesn't even mention the greatest risk facing the U.S. (and many European) stock markets -- the retirement of baby boomers. What will happen when baby boomers want to sell their stocks for a big profit? Who's going to keep on buying?