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The mutual fund industry has been built, in a sense, on witchcraft.

John C. Bogle

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John C. Bogle
Age: 89 †
Born: 1929
Born: May 8
Died: 2019
Died: January 16
Economist
Financier
Investor
Montclair Township
John Clifton Jack Bogle
Jack Bogle
Mutual
Built
Industry
Sense
Witchcraft
Fund

More quotes by John C. Bogle

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Hint: money flows into most funds after good performance, and goes out when bad performance follows.
John C. Bogle
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Don't look for the needle in the haystack. Just buy the haystack!
John C. Bogle
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While I haven't read economist Robin Hahnel's work, replacing capitalism would be at the very bottom of my list of priorities - to be considered only after everything else had been tried. Improving our capitalistic system however, is at the top of my list and is of course the major theme of The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism.
John C. Bogle
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If you're very talented and keep winning, you'll do just fine. It may take a while. But the talent is hard to identify and talent is hard to tell from luck. There's an awful lot of luck in this business. Past performance is not helpful in judging future performance.
John C. Bogle
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The relationship between executive CEO pay, stock performance is tenuous and not easily unscrambled, just one of myriad factors that affect the price of a stock.
John C. Bogle
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Your success in investing will depend in part on your character and guts, and in part on your ability to realize at the height of ebullience and the depth of despair alike that this too shall pass.
John C. Bogle
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Yes, the investor is often his own worst enemy. Yes, the marketing colossus known as the mutual fund industry provides the weaponry which enables investors to indulge their suicidal instincts. No, the fund industry was hardly an innocent bystander in the market boom and the subsequent carnage. We have met the enemy and he is us... all of us.
John C. Bogle
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The business has some problems, substantial problems. You go fix it, you young people. That's what you're there for. Don't believe what the old generation tells you. We don't know a damn thing, including Bogle.
John C. Bogle
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It's amazing how difficult it is for a man to understand something if he's paid a small fortune not to understand it.
John C. Bogle
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Sure there are some companies at the margins of our society that probably do that and I think we all have the responsibility as consumers and as investors to avoid them like the plague. If we do, they won't last very long. Doing what's right is the only possible formula for long-term - I emphasize long term - business success.
John C. Bogle
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Capitalism is not a Ponzi scheme. Capitalism is a scheme of free markets.
John C. Bogle
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I believe that the mutual fund industry's biggest shortcoming is too much focus on the momentary price of a stock - an illusion - and too little focus on the intrinsic value of the corporation - the ultimate reality. I'm comforted by the fact that Warren Buffett feels the same way.
John C. Bogle
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Income earned by the sweat of your brow should be taxed at the lowest rates, not the highest. Capital gains should be taxed at a higher rate.
John C. Bogle
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In Las Vegas we all know that it's the croupiers who win. At the race track, it's those who control the handle who win. State lotteries, does anybody think the participants in the lottery win? No. The state wins.
John C. Bogle
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If your fund doesn't last for the long term, how can you invest for the long term?
John C. Bogle
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Index funds eliminate the risks of individual stocks, market sectors, and manager selection. Only stock market risk remains.
John C. Bogle
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The mistakes we make as investors is when the market's going up, we think it's going to go up forever. When the market goes down, we think it's going to go down forever. Neither of those things actually happen. Doesn't do anything forever. It's by the moment.
John C. Bogle
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Among my greatest disappointments about the mutual fund industry - in addition to excessive costs and excessive focus on the short-term - is that fund managers have been passive participants in corporate governance.
John C. Bogle
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Fund investors are confident that they can easily select superior fund managers. They are wrong.
John C. Bogle
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If it is hard to imagine that 20% of losses on the stock market, you should never participate
John C. Bogle