The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
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Vanguard prepared a $5B iShares bid using Warren Buffett debt
“Well, first they went to Omaha, Nebraska and talked to Warren Buffett. Would he be interested in lending some money? And then they explained to him through their banker that they had the ability to raise money by passing it back to the funds anytime they wante…”
Vanguard's active franchise outperformed nearly 90% of peers over 35 years
“And we've been really doing a good job over the last 35 plus years of evaluating and doing due diligence on these managers, which has resulted in Vanguard, its active franchise has outperformed close to 90% of our peers on the active side.”
Jack Bogle opposed automation at Vanguard due to high upfront costs
“Whereas Jack Bogle opposed automation because it costs too damn much. Well, you know, the capital cost of a computer is a lot, but over time it saves enough money to pay for itself. Jack Bogle just honestly didn't catch that, but Brennan understood it, and he …”
Jack Bogle rejected ETF inventor Nathan Most, calling ETFs speculative
“At this time, he had the guy who invented ETFs, Nathan Most, came to Jack and said, this is just right for you. And Jack looked at him and said, no, it's not. It's speculative. I'm not going to have anything to do with it. And so for years, Vanguard wouldn't t…”
Vanguard estimates total value of financial advice at 300 basis points
“And we've quantified that value at somewhere around 300 basis points.”
Comegys: Vanguard Executes $1 Trillion Annually Using Algorithmic Trading Technology
“You don't trade on average a trillion dollars of execution on an annual basis by going in and touching every stock. We're using algo's technology to do it.”
Sonnenshein: Grayscale is the PIMCO or Vanguard of digital currencies
“So Grayscale is the world's largest digital currency asset manager, and so Grayscale is to digital currencies, maybe what PIMCO is to bonds or Vanguard is to indices.”
Vanguard active equity funds have generated 50 to 100 basis points alpha
“If you look at the alpha that's created on our equity side, It's ranged between 50 and a hundred basis points. We put all of our active funds together.”
Most of Vanguard's fixed income assets are actively managed
“Most of our assets on fixed income are actively managed.”
Hynes: Vanguard's philosophy is low cost across active and passive, not just indexing
“If you listen to Vanguard and what their philosophy is, they're not a passive company. Their philosophy is to be a low cost, both on the active side and the passive side, and there's a place for both passive and a place for active.”
Batnick: Jack Bogle Once Started an Unsuccessful Technical Analysis Fund
“It was in, ah, maybe Clash of the Culture is one of his books, where he spoke about, he started a fund based on technical analysis, and obviously, ah, it didn't do so well.”
Comegys: Vanguard S&P 500 Tracking Error Is Typically Under One Basis Point
“Something like a 500 index fund, we're gonna see tracking error be no more than a couple basis points. Typically, less than one.”
Comegys: Vanguard Was 80% Active and 20% Passive 25 Years Ago
“We were still 80% active at the time, 20% passive, but you could see what we were doing.”
Mogelof: Six asset managers control over 85% of target date fund assets
“There are really six managers that dominate the market, probably have 85 plus percent of the assets. That's Vanguard, Fidelity, BlackRock, State Street, T. Rowe, and Capital Group.”
Active ETF Structures Defer Capital Gains Taxes for Fund Investors
“The brilliance of the ETF structure led by Vanguard is create a structure that we can own Microsoft. We don't, but we can own Microsoft and Toga. It can double. We could sell Microsoft and the owners of Toga won't pay the capital gains tax until they sell thei…”
Vanguard expected $150M for its first index fund but raised only $12M
“Well, he thought he'd raise a hundred and fifty million dollars and go into the retail index fund business. In fact, it didn't raise a 150, it didn't raise a hundred, didn't raise 50, and you could just see the expectations coming down as the road show went fa…”
Vanguard cuts allocations to active investment managers that grow too large
“When they think they've gotten to a scale with a manager that that manager is now going to run the risk of being too big, they will take money away and go look for other managers.”
Vanguard grew from $300 billion in 1997 to nearly $6 trillion
“So in the last 23 years since I arrived, we had 300 plus billion when I got there. Today, we're close to six trillion dollars.”
Indexing grew from under 10% to over 50% of equity mutual funds
“In 1997 indexing was under 10% of mutual fund assets. And now it's over 50% of mutual fund assets on the equity side.”