Index Funds

Let’s have some index fund fun today.

Many in the Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) Community  recommend VTSAX (Vanguard’s Total Stock Market Index) as the investment of choice.

Why is that?

It probably has something to do with the blog www.jlcollinsnh.com or book The Simple Path to Wealth.

If you are in the Choose FI world, then you’ve heard of the godfather of FI, Jim Collins.

You may know he is a huge fan of Vanguard as the mutual fund company of choice.

Why? 

Does it have the cheapest index fund fees?

Does it have the lowest investment minimums?

It turns out…

It does not.

Then why does he recommend it?

I’ll get to that…

One thing I did the first time I read The Simple Path to Wealth (I ended up reading it about 15 times as an editor on the book) was check all my current investments to find out if I was paying too much in fees.

I’ve always followed the simple advice of Warren Buffett.

Invest in index funds.

I don’t believe investors can or should try to beat the market.

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Here are the headlines that I saw when I googled “stock market” today:

“Is a global recession led by a US Stock Market crash in the offing?”

“Dow slides as US stock market suffers worst week in two years”

“Chart analysts see bigger market pullback if interest rates continue to shoot higher”

These headlines are going to affect everyone differently.  Let me share with you how it affects me.  Normally, I would never read it.  But today,

I laugh at it.

It’s useless information.

Let me give you a little background on me.

I worked for Fidelity Investments as a stock broker while I was in college before I joined the military.  I’m an avid finance nerd and real estate investor.

I’ve studied the markets long enough to know that index funds are the smartest way to invest your money.  Trying to beat the market is pointless.

I also know that a lot of what you see in the financial media space is useless information.  They try to predict where the market is going.  When they get it wrong, they try to explain logically why they got it wrong, which ends up being the perfect definition of hindsight bias.

Hindsight bias, also known as the knew-it-all-along effect or creeping determinism, is the inclination, after an event has occurred, to see the event as having been predictable, despite there having been little or no objective basis for predicting it.

Financial magazines, newsletters, cable programs, videos, it’s all meant to capitalize on either fear or greed.  A few weeks ago, it was greed.  The markets were kicking ass.

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