With economic growth at a standstill, Europe a financial disaster area and the U.S. stock market tanking, who better to turn to for advice than John C. Bogle?
Buying and holding stocks and bonds for the long term and maintaining a diversified portfolio are still the smartest strategies for the average investor, says Vanguard founder Jack Bogle in answer to Mark Cuban and other critics of these traditional approaches. In the Big Interview with Journal columnist Jason Zweig, Bogle takes aim at the culture of market speculation. Betting on long odds, he says, "doesn't pay off very often."
Mr. Bogle founded Vanguard Group in 1974. Two years later, he launched the first index mutual fund, enabling investors to bet on broad baskets of stocks at low cost. Along the way, he has been a tireless, though critics have said sanctimonious, crusader against overpaid money managers, ineffective policy makers, short-term-fixated investors and financial professionals corrupted by conflicts of interest.
Mr. Bogle's forecasts of stock and bond returns, while hardly perfect, have been more accurate than most. In the early 1990s, he predicted double-digit-percentage annual gains for stocks over the coming decade. (He was correct.) In 1999, Mr. Bogle foresaw low-single-digit returns for the next decade. (He should've been even more pessimistic.)
Mr. Bogle, 82 years old, has survived at least half a dozen heart attacks since 1960, a heart transplant in 1996, three days in a coma in 2009 and four broken ribs when he took a spill two months ago.
Yet the ravages of Mr. Bogle's body seem to have toughened his mind. While he is frustrated at governments around the world for bungling financial policy and at speculators for hijacking the markets, he is optimistic that future stock returns will be better than many people expect….
There's more at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904103404576560913892680574.html?mod=markets_newsreel
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