2019-03-01 Money

JOHN BOGLE / 1929— 2019

BY PAT REGNIER

70 MONEY.COM MARCH^2019

REMEMBERING JACK BOGLE

THE PATRON SAINT

OF INDEX FUNDS

OHN C. “JACK” BOGLE,who founded the Vanguard Group

and revolutionized the way millions of Americans save

and invest, died on Jan. 16.

He was 89 years old.

Bogle’s best-known legacy is the index fund, a

low-cost, diversified way to hold stocks or bonds. In

an unpredictable market, few investment managers are able to

consistently leave their customers, rather than themselves, better

off. Jack Bogle could be said to be an exception: Compared with

traditionally managed funds, index mutual funds as a group save

their owners billions per year in the fees deducted from returns.

And index funds, tracking broad market benchmarks, generally

outperform more-expensive “active” managers.

A COUNTERINTUITIVEIDEA

IN 1976, BOGLE’S VANGUARD GROUP launched

First Index Investment Trust, now known

as the Vanguard 500 Index. It was the first

retail mutual fund of its kind. It didn’t employ

a manager who tried to pick the best stocks

or guess the right time to get into or out of

the market. Instead, First Index aimed only

to replicate the average performance of the

blue-chip stocks listed on the Standard &

Poor’s 500 index. This was a counterintuitive

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