Finance titan Jack Bogle is dead at 89

Quick Take

  • Jack Bogle, founder of Vanguard Group has died at the age of 89
  • Vanguard was behind the creation of the first ever mutual index fund

Fabled investor and Vanguard Group founder Jack Bogle has died at the age of 89, the investment management firm announced this evening

Bogle is revered in finance circles as starting the firm that pioneered the index mutual fund, which revolutionized trading by offering investors higher returns and lower costs than were available with actively managed funds. His most devoted followers, self-described "Bogleheads" congregate at an active forum and wiki bearing his name, Bogleheads.org.

He started Vanguard Group in 1975. He's written 13 books on investing, according to CNBC, the most recent 2018's "Stay the Course: The Story of Vanguard and the Index Revolution." Estimates on the percentage of today's stock market composing passively managed index funds are as high as 40 percent.

Bogle was an ardent proponent of a "buy and hold" investment strategy, which favors investors getting into the market and holding on for the long term. You might say he was the original HODLer, although no great supporter of cryptocurrency, once notably saying bitcoin should be avoided "like the plague."

Photo credit: Morningstar/YouTube


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