Quotes

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Quotes by David Swensen (9)

David Swensen, Chief Investment Officer, Yale University Endowment Fund
"Unless an investor has access to 'incredibly high-qualified professionals,' they should be 100 percent passive -- that includes almost all individual investors and most institutional investors."
David Swensen, Chief Investment Officer, Yale University Endowment Fund
"The simple index fund solution has been adopted as a cornerstone of investment strategy for many of the nation's pension plans operated by our giant corporations and state and local governments. Indexing is also the predominant strategy for the largest of them all, the retirement plan for federal government employees, the Federal Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). The plan has been a remarkable success, and now holds some $173 billion of assets for the benefit of our public servants and members of armed services."
David Swensen, Chief Investment Officer, Yale University Endowment Fund
"A minuscule 4 percent of funds produce market-beating after-tax results with a scant 0.6 percent (annual) margin of gain. The 96 percent of funds that fail to meet or beat the Vanguard 500 Index Fund lose by a wealth-destroying margin of 4.8 percent per annum."
David Swensen, Chief Investment Officer, Yale University Endowment Fund
"The simple index fund solution has been adopted as a cornerstone of investment strategy for many of the nation's pension plans operated by our giant corporations and state and local governments. Indexing is also the predominant strategy for the largest of them all, the retirement plan for federal government employees, the Federal Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). The plan has been a remarkable success, and now holds some $173 billion of assets for the benefit of our public servants and members of armed services."
David Swensen, Chief Investment Officer, Yale University Endowment Fund
"A miniscule 4 percent of funds produce market-beating after-tax results with a scant 0.6 percent (annual) margin of gain. The 96 percent of funds that fail to meet or beat the Vanguard 500 Index Fund lose by a wealth-destroying margin of 4.8% per annum."
David Swensen, Chief Investment Officer, Yale University Endowment Fund
"Most active mutual funds are more interested in collecting fees than in boosting returns for investors."
David Swensen, Chief Investment Officer, Yale University Endowment Fund
"I've always viewed high-frequency trading as a tax on the rest of us."
David Swensen, Chief Investment Officer, Yale University Endowment Fund
"Invest in low-turnover, passively managed index funds...and stay away from profit-driven investment management organizations... The mutual fund industry is a colossal failure... resulting from its systematic exploitation of individual investors...as funds extract enormous sums from investors in exchange for providing a shocking disservice..... Excessive management fees take their toll, and (manager) profits dominate fiduciary responsibility."
David Swensen, Chief Investment Officer, Yale University Endowment Fund
"When you look at the results on an after-fee, after-tax basis over reasonably long periods of time, there's almost no chance that you end up beating the index fund."