When you look at your retirement corpus in low-cost index funds after a lifetime of investing and find that you have done well, remember to thank a man named Jack Bogle.
Indian retail stock and bond investors may not have heard the name, but John C. Bogle (called Jack) impacted the way mutual funds are constructed, cost and sold all over the world. The founder of the $4.9 trillion Vanguard Group died on 16 January, a little over three months short of his 90th birthday. Bogle straddles the fund management world like a colossus, having turned an industry on its head more than 30 years ago by thinking of and acting in the interest of the retail investor. He did this by focusing on whittling down costs in two ways. One, to cut out the star fund manager and introduce index-based investing with wafer-thin costs. Two, to cut out the distributor and go “no-load”—where shares are sold without a commission or charge.
