Quotes by John C. Bogle - Page 4

I think it's fairly easy to provide a moral defense of capitalism. It has been - over the last 200 years - the underlying basis for enormous increases in productivity and human welfare and rising living standards, particularly in the United States, and in the industrialized nations but in fact, in most parts of the world.
John C. Bogle / Investor
Moral
Thinking
World
Copy Quote
While the apostles of the new so-called "behavioral" theory present ample evidence of how often human beings make irrational financial decisions, it remains to be seen whether these decisions lead to predictable errors that create systematic mispricings upon which rational investors can readily and economically capitalize.
John C. Bogle / Investor
Decision
Errors
Investing
Copy Quote
We make too much out of past performance, and it's very misleading to investors. It causes them to move money around. They buy a fund that's hot and then it turns cold as all hot funds eventually do. And then they get out. Well, buying at the high and selling at the low isn't going to leave you a satisfied shareholder, right?
John C. Bogle / Investor
Buying
Causes
Cold
Fund
Hot
Investors
Satisfied
Selling
Too Much
Turns
Buy
Leave
Eventually
Performance
Low
Misleading
Copy Quote
Sure there are some companies at the margins of our society that probably do that and I think we all have the responsibility as consumers and as investors to avoid them like the plague. If we do, they won't last very long. Doing what's right is the only possible formula for long-term - I emphasize long term - business success.
John C. Bogle / Investor
Long
Responsibility
Thinking
Copy Quote
While I haven't read economist Robin Hahnel's work, replacing capitalism would be at the very bottom of my list of priorities - to be considered only after everything else had been tried. Improving our capitalistic system however, is at the top of my list and is of course the major theme of "The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism."
John C. Bogle / Investor
Battle
Priorities
Soul
Copy Quote
I believe that the behavior of too many of our corporations investment bankers and fund managers has jeopardized some of the trust that investors have had. It's not the economic engine that we need to focus on, but the need to make sure that our investors receive their fair share of the returns that that great economic system produces.
John C. Bogle / Investor
Believe
Focus
Investment
Copy Quote
We live in a very risky world and investors should not get "carried away" with excessive allocations to equities, or for that matter, real estate. As always asset allocation and low cost and broad diversification will be essential in earning one's fair share of whatever returns our financial markets are generous enough to bestow upon us.
John C. Bogle / Investor
Financial
Real
World
Copy Quote
The culture of the mutual fund industry, when I came into it in 1951, was pretty much a culture of fiduciary duty and investment, with funds run by investment professionals. The firm I worked with, Wellington Management Co., they had one fund. That was very typical in the industry... investment professionals focused on long-term investing.
John C. Bogle / Investor
Firm
Focused
Fund
Industry
Investing
Long Term
Management
Mutual
Mutual Fund
Typical
Wellington
Pretty
Came
Run
Professionals
Worked
Copy Quote
Yes, the investor is often his own worst enemy. Yes, the marketing colossus known as the mutual fund industry provides the weaponry which enables investors to indulge their suicidal instincts. No, the fund industry was hardly an innocent bystander in the market boom and the subsequent carnage. "We have met the enemy and he is us"... all of us.
John C. Bogle / Investor
Bystanders
Suicidal
Worst Enemy
Copy Quote
I'd be the first to agree that capitalism bestows its blessings unevenly. But that wouldn't persuade me to think it was a good idea to do away with those blessings in their entirety. That said, there is lots of work to be done to make capitalism work better, and to broaden its blessings far more widely not only in America, but all over the globe.
John C. Bogle / Investor
Blessing
Done
Thinking
Copy Quote
Ask yourself: Am I an investor, or am I a speculator? An investor is a person who owns business and holds it forever and enjoys the returns that U.S. businesses, and to some extent global businesses, have earned since the beginning of time. Speculation is betting on price. Speculation has no place in the portfolio or the kit of the typical investor.
John C. Bogle / Investor
Forever
Return
Typical
Copy Quote
I was born in an earlier generation and, as a group, my classmates at Blair Academy and Princeton University were as ethical, straightforward, and integrity laden as you could possibly imagine - perhaps not a 100% - but the overwhelming majority. I've been in business a long, long time and I simply cannot imagine seeking out cheating, greedy people.
John C. Bogle / Investor
Cheating
Integrity
Long
Copy Quote
Thomas Aquinas defined the human soul as the core of our being, and the power that brings our characteristics into unity so the soul of capitalism - in its own temporal world as contrasted to the spiritual world of human beings - is what defines the core of the system and the factors that unify to produce the wonderful world that we are blessed to live in.
John C. Bogle / Investor
Blessed
Soul
Spiritual
Copy Quote
We need to reorganize our entire system of retirement plan investing and to develop federal standards of fiduciary duty for pension trustees and fund managers. These require "top down" intervention. But we also need investors to look after their own economic interests, a bottom up approach to our problems that is well within our individual power to undertake.
John C. Bogle / Investor
Economic
Problem
Retirement
Copy Quote
The fund scandals shined the spotlight on the fact that mutual fund managers were putting their interests ahead of the fund shareholders who trusted them, which had much more substantial consequences in the form of excessive fees and the promotion - as the market moved into the stratosphere - of technology funds and new economy funds which were soon to collapse.
John C. Bogle / Investor
Technology
Mutual Fund
Promotion
Copy Quote
I believe Washington should be a more active participant focusing on the issue of why corporate shareholders and mutual fund shareholders are not given fair treatment by corporate management and mutual fund management. We need to develop a national standard of fiduciary duty to ensure that these agents, if you will, are adequately representing the principles - pension beneficiaries and mutual fund shareholders - whom they are duty bound to serve.
John C. Bogle / Investor
Believe
Management
Mutual Fund
Copy Quote
The idea that a bell rings to signal when investors should get into or out of the stock market is simply not credible. After nearly fifty years in this business, I do not know of anybody who has done it successfully and consistently. I don't even know anybody who knows anybody who has done it successfully and consistently. Yet market timing appears to be increasingly embraced by mutual fund investors and the professional managers of fund portfolios alike.
John C. Bogle / Investor
Ideas
Investing
Years
Copy Quote
We need a federal government commission to study the way our financial services system is working - I believe it is working badly - and we also need more educated investors. There are good long term low-priced mutual funds - my favorite is a total stock market index fund - and bad short term highly priced mutual funds. If investors would get themselves educated, and invest in the former - taking their money out of the latter - we would see some automatic improvements in the system, and see them fairly quickly.
John C. Bogle / Investor
Believe
Long
Study
Copy Quote
The general systems of money management today require people to pretend to do something they can't do and like something they don't. It's a funny business because on a net basis, the whole investment management business together gives no value added to all buyers combined. That's the way it has to work. Mutual funds charge two percent per year and then brokers switch people between funds, costing another three to four percentage points. The poor guy in the general public is getting a terrible product from the professionals.
John C. Bogle / Investor
People
Two
Years
Copy Quote
Our capitalistic scheme in the latter years of the 20th century seems to have lost its way. We've had a "pathalogical change" from traditional owners capitalism where most of the rewards have gone to those who make the investments and assume the risks to a new and deeply flawed system of managers capitalism where the managers of our corporations our investment system, and our mutual funds are simply take too large a share of the returns generated by our corporations and mutual funds leaving the last line investors - pension beneficiaries and mutual fund owners at the bottom of the food chain.
John C. Bogle / Investor
Assuming
Leaving
Risk
Copy Quote

Top Authors

Steven Wright
Comedian
Tuesday, Dec 06, 1955
Sun Tzu
Strategist
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Thursday, Jan 01, 1970
Vincent Van Gogh
Painter
Wednesday, Mar 30, 1853
Tuesday, Jul 29, 1890
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Poet
Wednesday, Oct 21, 1772
Friday, Jul 25, 1834
Friedrich Nietzsche
Philologist
Tuesday, Oct 15, 1844
Saturday, Aug 25, 1900
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Writer
Thursday, Aug 28, 1749
Thursday, Mar 22, 1832
John Keats
Poet
Saturday, Oct 31, 1795
Friday, Feb 23, 1821
John Locke
Philosopher
Sunday, Aug 29, 1632
Tuesday, Oct 28, 1704
Pope Francis
Thursday, Dec 17, 1936
Theodore Roosevelt
26Th U.s. President
Wednesday, Oct 27, 1858
Monday, Jan 06, 1919
Abraham Lincoln
16Th U.S. President
Sunday, Feb 12, 1809
Saturday, Apr 15, 1865
Niccolo Machiavelli
Historian
Monday, May 03, 1469
Tuesday, Jun 21, 1527
Rodney Dangerfield
Comedian
Tuesday, Nov 22, 1921
Tuesday, Oct 05, 2004
Carl Jung
Psychiatrist
Monday, Jul 26, 1875
Tuesday, Jun 06, 1961
Albert Camus
Author
Friday, Nov 07, 1913
Monday, Jan 04, 1960

View All Authors

John C. Bogle Quotes - Page 4

App & Tools

Related Investor Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page

Stay Connected

App & Tools

Related Investor Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Top Authors

Share This Page