Common Sense on Mutual Funds Quotes

“The mutual fund industry has been built, in a sense, on witchcraft.”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor

“The index fund is a most unlikely hero for the typical investor. It is no more (nor less) than a broadly diversified portfolio, typically run at rock-bottom costs, without the putative benefit of a brilliant, resourceful, and highly skilled portfolio manager. The index fund simply buys and holds the securities in a particular index, in proportion to their weight in the index. The concept is simplicity writ large.”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds, Updated 10th Anniversary Edition

“When navigating the financial markets, the long-term investor must keep in mind the four basic dimensions of long-term return — reward, risk, cost and time — and must apply them to every asset class. Never forget that these four dimensions are remarkably interdependent.”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor

“The idea that a bell rings to signal when investors should get into or out of the market is simply not credible. After nearly 50 years in this business, I do not know of anybody who has done it successfully and consistently. I don't even know anybody who knows anybody who has done it successfully and consistently.”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor

“But luck is never enough. The leader needs to be ready when opportunity knocks. It is sad when we don't get any breaks in this life, and sadder still when we don't recognize them when they make their appearance. But the saddest thing of all is not to have readied ourselves to make the most of them.”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor

“The most popular form is based on: • Using a market index strategy, but emphasizing growth stocks and holding lower-yielding equities, in order to minimize the tax burden on income. • Realizing, to the maximum possible extent, losses on the sale of portfolio holdings that have declined (a practice known as “harvesting losses”), and thereby offsetting realized gains when they occur. • Replacing the holdings sold at a loss after 30 days. (During the interim, their absence from the portfolio could engender a small lack of precision in matching the index.) • Limiting its shareholder base to investors with a long-term focus by charging a penalty—a transaction fee, payable to the fund and its remaining shareholders—if shares are redeemed within five years of purchase. Such a penalty is designed to minimize the possibility of abrupt share redemptions. • Maintaining the same rock-bottom costs that characterize the lowest-cost index funds.”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds, Updated 10th Anniversary Edition

“The best-known stars are, of course, those funds awarded top five-star billing by Morningstar Mutual Funds.”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds, Updated 10th Anniversary Edition

“At the outset, investing is an act of faith, a willingness to postpone present consumption and save for the future.”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds, Updated 10th Anniversary Edition

“So please don't forget that considering the probabilities of future returns only begins the decision-making process. Decisions have consequences. If the consequences of being badly wrong about future returns would imperil your financial future, be conservative.”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor

“When Adam Smith described the concept of the “invisible hand,” he concluded that the individual businessman “generally neither intends to promote public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it.” Hence, Smith argued that “it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the baker, or the brewer that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest . . . their self-love.” So it is in the traditional mutual fund industry. We cannot expect management companies to operate in the public interest. We must recognize the reality that they are in the business of investing other people’s money in order to maximize their own profits, even though those profits come at the expense of their fund shareholders.”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds, Updated 10th Anniversary Edition

“In these uncertain days, bond funds are an especially important option for investors. Unlike stock funds, they have high predictability in at least these five ways: (1) The current yields (on longer-term issues) are an excellent—if imperfect—predictor of future returns. (2) The range of gross returns earned by bond managers clusters in an inevitably narrow range that is established by the current level of interest rates in each sector of the market. (3) The choices are wide. As the maturity date lengthens, volatility of principal increases, but volatility of income declines. (4) Whether taxable or municipal, bond fund returns are highly correlated with one another. Municipal bond funds are fine choices for investors in high tax brackets, and inflation-protected bond funds are a sound option for those who believe that much higher living costs will result from the huge federal government deficits of this era. (5) The greatest constant of all is that—given equivalent portfolio quality and maturity—lower costs mean higher returns. (Don’t forget that index bond funds—or their equivalent—carry the lowest costs of all.)”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds, Updated 10th Anniversary Edition

“A recent study by Morningstar Mutual Funds—to its credit, one of the few publications that systematically tackles issues like this one—concluded essentially that owning more than four randomly chosen equity funds didn’t reduce risk appreciably. Around that number, risk remains fairly constant, all the way out to 30 funds (an unbelievable number!), at which point Morningstar apparently stopped counting.”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds, Updated 10th Anniversary Edition

“Peter Bernstein and Robert Arnott reflected on this question in a recent article in the Journal of Portfolio Management: “Bull Market? Bear Market? Should You Really Care?” They concluded that “for most long-term investors, bull markets are not nearly as beneficial, and bear markets not nearly as damaging as most investors seem to think.” They noted, correctly, that “a bull market raises the asset value, but delivers a proportionate reduction in the prospective real yields that the portfolio can deliver from that point forward, while a bear market does the reverse, reducing portfolio value, which is largely offset by an increase in prospective yields, other things being equal.”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds, Updated 10th Anniversary Edition

“for the stock market, corporate earnings and dividends; for the bond market, interest payments. Market returns, however, are calculated before the deduction of the costs of investing, and are most assuredly not based on speculation and rapid trading, which do nothing but shift returns from one investor to another. For the long-term investor, returns have everything to do with the underlying economics of corporate America and very little to do with the mechanical process of buying and selling pieces of paper. The art of investing in mutual funds, I would argue, rests on simplicity and common sense.”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds, Updated 10th Anniversary Edition

“The longer the time horizon, the less the variability in average annual returns. Investors should not underestimate their time horizons. An investor who begins contributing to a retirement plan at age 25, and then, in retirement, draws on the accumulated capital until age 75 and beyond, would have an investment lifetime of 50 years or more. Our colleges, universities, and many other durable institutions have essentially unlimited time horizons.”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds, Updated 10th Anniversary Edition

“Gold is often sought as a refuge during times of financial travail. True to form, the price of the precious metal more than tripled in the 1999-2009 decade. But gold is largely a rank speculation, for its price is based solely on market expectations. Gold provides no internal rate of return. Unlike stocks and bonds, gold provides none of the intrinsic value that is created for stocks by earnings growth and dividend yields, and for bonds by interest payments. So in the two centuries plus shown in the chart, the initial $10,000 investment in gold grew to barely $26,000 in realterms. In fact, since the peak reached during its earlier boom in 1980, the price of gold has lost nearly 40 percent of its real value.”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds, Updated 10th Anniversary Edition

“Another huge toll has been taken by taxes. Passively managed index funds are tax-efficient, given the low turnover implicit in the structure of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (and, to an even greater extent, the all-market Wilshire 5000 Index).”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds, Updated 10th Anniversary Edition

“But it is the long-term merits of the index fund—broad diversification, weightings paralleling those of the stocks that comprise the market, minimal portfolio turnover, and low cost—that commend it to wise investors. Consider these words from perhaps the wisest investor of all, Warren E. Buffett, from the 1996 Annual Report of Berkshire Hathaway Corporation: Most investors, both institutional and individual, will find that the best way to own common stocks is through an index fund that charges minimal fees. Those following this path are sure to beat the net results (after fees and expenses) delivered by the great majority of investment professionals.”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds, Updated 10th Anniversary Edition

“When you have identified your long-term objectives, defined your tolerance for risk, and carefully selected an index fund or a small number of actively managed funds that meet your goals, stay the course. Hold tight. Complicating the investment process merely clutters the mind, too often bringing emotion into a financial plan that cries out for rationality. I am absolutely persuaded that investors’ emotions, such as greed and fear, exuberance and hope—if translated into rash actions—can be every bit as destructive to investment performance as inferior market returns. To reiterate what the estimable Mr. Buffett said earlier: “Inactivity strikes us as intelligent behavior.” Never forget it.”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds, Updated 10th Anniversary Edition

“I would add that I am not persuaded that international funds are a necessary component of an investor’s portfolio. Foreign funds may reduce a portfolio’s volatility, but their economic and currency risks may reduce returns by a still larger amount. The idea that a theoretically optimal portfolio must hold each geographical component at its market weight simply pushes me further than I would dream of being pushed. (I explore the pros and cons of global investing in Chapter 8.) My best judgment is that international holdings should comprise 20 percent of equities at a maximum, and that a zero weight is fully acceptable in most portfolios.”
― John C. Bogle, Common Sense on Mutual Funds, Updated 10th Anniversary Edition