Investing for Retirement: Passive Investing – Indexed Mutual Funds & ETFs

The only rational path for individual investors is to invest in passively managed index funds. For the reasons described here, active management is a negative-sum game. Index funds track the performance of a particular market benchmark (“index”) as closely as possible. They do this by buying all, or at least a representative sample, of the securities in the benchmark. Indexing now represents approximately 30% of all investment dollars. Index mutual funds have $2 trillion in assets. ETF index funds have a similar amount. Surprisingly, that means that approximately 70% of investment dollars are still in actively managed funds! Continue reading Investing for Retirement: Passive Investing – Indexed Mutual Funds & ETFs

Investing for Retirement: Actively Managed Investing

It is nearly impossible for active managers to beat the market over the long term after taking management expenses, transaction fees, taxes, and risk into account.  Individual investors don’t have the time or resources to compete with institutional investors. The only rational path for individual investors is to invest in passively managed index funds. Continue reading Investing for Retirement: Actively Managed Investing

Investing for Retirement: Controlling Your Costs

The greater your investment costs associated with financial intermediation, the less you ultimately receive in savings. These costs may include brokerage commissions, sales loads, management fees, financial advisory fees, bank trust department fees, advertising costs, and lawyers’ fees. You cannot beat the market because it is a zero sum game. Financial intermediation means that beating the market is a loser’s game. Continue reading Investing for Retirement: Controlling Your Costs