John Bogle

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John Clifton "Jack" Bogle (born May 8, 1929 in Verona, New Jersey)^[1] is the founder and retired CEO of The Vanguard Group. He attended Blair Academy on a full scholarship, earned his undergraduate degree from Princeton University in 1951, and attended evening and weekend classes at the University of Pennsylvania. Upon graduation he went to work for Walter L. Morgan at Wellington Management Company.

After successfully climbing through the ranks, he ended up as chairman at Wellington, but was later fired for an "extremely unwise" merger he put into place, a poor decision he considers his biggest mistake, stating "The great thing about that mistake, which was shameful and inexcusable and a reflection of immaturity and confidence beyond what the facts justified, was that I learned a lot" ^[2] and moved on to found Vanguard in 1974. Under his leadership, the company grew to be the second largest mutual fund company in the world.^[3]

Bogle on the cover of Common Sense on Mutual Funds

His awards and distinctions include:

named as one of the "world’s 100 most powerful and influential people" by Time magazine in 2004
Institutional Investor's Lifetime Achievement Award (2004)
named one of the investment industry’s four "Giants of the 20th Century" by Fortune magazine in 1999
the Woodrow Wilson Award from Princeton University for "distinguished achievement in the Nation’s service" (1999)

Bogle is a member of the board of trustees at Blair Academy. He is also an advisory board member of the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance at the Yale School of Management. Bogle received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Princeton University in 2005.

He continues to be active in The Vanguard Group.

Bogle also currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the National Constitution Center [1] in Philadelphia, a museum dedicated to the U.S. Constitution. He had previously served as Chairman of the Board from 1999 through 2007. He was named Chairman Emeritus in January 2007, when President George H.W. Bush was named Chairman.

Authors Taylor Larimore, Mel Lindauer, and Michael LeBoeuf wrote a book entitled "The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing," teaching John Bogle's basic strategies to the novice investor.^[4]

On his popular ABC radio show Moneytalk, Bob Brinker frequently touts Bogle's philosophies on investing and recommends his books, particularly Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor.

Bogle and his wife Eve have six children and are grandparents. They reside in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

1 Investment Strategy
2 Books
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Investment Strategy

Bogle is famous for his insistence, in numerous media appearances and in writing, on the superiority of index funds over traditional actively-managed mutual funds. He believes that it is folly to attempt to pick actively managed mutual funds and expect their performance to beat a well run index fund over a long period of time.

Bogle argues for an approach to investing defined by simplicity and common sense. Below are his eight basic rules for investors:

Select low-cost funds
Consider carefully the added costs of advice
Do not overrate past fund performance
Use past performance to determine consistency and risk
Beware of stars (as in, star mutual fund managers)
Beware of asset size
Don’t own too many funds
Buy your fund portfolio – and hold it

[edit] Books

Bogle on Mutual Funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor (McGraw-Hill, 1993), ISBN 1-55623-860-6
Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor (John Wiley & Sons, 1999), ISBN 0-471-39228-6
John Bogle on Investing: The First 50 Years (McGraw-Hill, 2000), ISBN 0-07-136438-2
Character Counts: The Creation and Building of The Vanguard Group (McGraw-Hill, 2002) ISBN 0-07-139115-0
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism (Yale University Press, 2005), ISBN 0-300-10990-3
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns (Wiley, 2007), ISBN 978-0-470-10210-7

[edit] References

^ Slater, Robert. John Bogle and the Vanguard experiment : One Man’s Quest to Transform the Mutual Fund Industry. Chicago: Irwin Professional Pub., 1997. (ISBN 0786305592)
^ Fortune interview. Retrieved on 2007-12-17.
^ Amy Barrett and Jeffrey M. Laderman. "That's Why They Call It Vanguard", Business Week, January 7, 1999.
^ Amazon.com listing for Bogleheads' Guide to Investing