Are Index Funds Great Literature?
IN the pantheon of great investors, index fund managers are all but invisible. Doomed to lag behind the performance of the hottest mutual funds while the market is going up, they also fail to attract great cheers when their funds sink no lower than the market during a downturn. No one asks them for impassioned reviews of their favorite stocks, nor do shareholders flock to their presentations at mutual fund confabs, breathlessly waiting for a chance to tell them how they have guaranteed young Johnny’s college education. And few shareholders are likely to review the last year on their account statements this spring and exclaim, ”Thank goodness I’ve lost only 25 percent!” If you think being one of the index fund managers can be dull, imagine reading about them. The saving grace of index investing is that you need to know almost nothing about it, except for the fact that, at least according to its proponents, it is one of the most successful strategies around.
