This is the Mutual Fund Forum, a place to discuss ALL mutual funds...

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'WHO CARES'?

Anyone who owns a Vanguard product where the manager(s) have NOne (or little) of their own money invested along with you,....... might consider caring........ at least a bit! 

Best,

t

Great post, thanks.

Some of the good Vanguard funds like Primecap or Wellington have large management participation.

Also OAKBX and FAIRX do.

I think I see a pattern. 

Absolutely.......

Wellesley Fund also has large management ownership.....

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Also of IMPORTANT note, many of the 'index fund' managers at Vanguard have little to NO ownership in the shares of their own iNDex fUnDs....EVEN the 'DFA Index Funds listed', the managers own little to 'nothing' of their own index funds..... Now what message about the validity of indexing do you read in those statistics!

:-)

t

It's surprising to me that Ed Owens doesn't own ANY Healthcare, which was Vanguard's most steller fund once upon a time. Not sure what message that tells me. Especially since I am considering selling my Healthcare stake.

Sam

snray:

It's surprising to me that Ed Owens doesn't own ANY Healthcare, which was Vanguard's most steller fund once upon a time. Not sure what message that tells me. Especially since I am considering selling my Healthcare stake.

Sam

Anyone who is worried about Obama becoming president is pulling out of healthcare.

It's certainly abominable that some managers have zero investment in their own funds.  That's certainly a sell signal if there ever was one. 

Beyond that, I'm not sure the numbers are very useful.  >$1M is far too vague.  A $1M investment by a guy with $300M in total assets is less than 1% of total net worth.  I bet some of these guys throw in the token $1M just to look good on these reports.

Best,
Oildog

" >$1M is far too vague"

If $1M is more vague than 'ZERO'(or $10,000), I'll go with vague.............:-)

t

TaylorZR:

Anyone who owns a Vanguard product where the manager(s) have NOne (or little) of their own money invested along with you,....... might consider caring........ at least a bit! 

I invest in Vanguard funds, and I don't care.  The fund manager and I may have very different investment needs.  Most of my investments with Vanguard are in index funds.  I care whether the mangers closely track the indexes.

So you don't mind paying managers to index, when they don't believe in indexing for themselves???  That would really bother me.

Maybe the index managers are the newest employees and don't have any money to invest yet?  Just wondering out loud... 

Just one more strike against Vanguard.  Strike 1 being the high minimum investment requirements, even for IRAs, that are three times higher than other mainstream funds.  Strike 2 being the transfer fees to buy or sell Vanguard funds anywhere other than with Vanguard directly.

Hey t, maybe all the Vanguard fund managers put their money in CAIBX so they can keep things simple. ;)

I'm still going to index...no matter what the managers do..

BTW, I agree with RatonBob, in that their minimums are quite high. This is to keep expenses down, but I would like to see them cater more towards the beginner that will hopefully be a longtime customer. If I were in charge, I would reduce the minimums on only the more common funds like VTSMX, VBMFX, and VGTSX, i.e., from 3K to 1K, and keep the higher minimums on the other funds. The costs would rise a bit, but it would be more customer friendly. Same thing with transfer fees, i.e., that is to keep costs down and transactions at a minimum. I think these fees should stay because that puts an unnecessary burden on those who deal directly with the company.

Dan

Thanks for posting this link. Very informative. Surprising to see some individual investors I know have more money invested in certain funds than the manager. Also note the manager holdings in all of the Oakmark funds listed (all over 1 million clams...nice).

JHB