Three Paths to Profitable Investing: Using ETFs in Healthcare, Infrastructure, and the Environment to Grow Your Assets

12. Conclusion

“Investing is an act of faith.” So wrote John Bogle, the founder of the Vanguard Group, in his book Common Sense on Mutual Funds published in 1999. And it was true. Investors turned their money over to professional money managers and trusted them to invest prudently, certainly with the investors’ best interests at heart. But over the past ten years, money managers have not lived up to that faith. Today institutional investors (mutual funds and pension plans) account for more than 70% of equity ownership in the United States, up from about 50% ten years ago. Our “faith” has allowed these managers and advisors to build a system that rewards the professionals regardless of how poorly they perform. They have created compensation structures ...