FYI: Over breakfast one summer morning in the late 1990s, I asked Vanguard Group founder Jack Bogle — creator of the index fund and staunch believer in passive investing — what he would say to anyone who suggested that frothy times had made it “a stock-picker’s market.”
I can’t recall Bogle’s exact answer, but it went something like this:
“I would have told them until recently to buy Vanguard Windsor fund, because the only stock-picker I truly believe in is John Neff, but now that he’s retired, I would tell them they’re running a fool’s errand.”
Bogle had so much faith in Neff that he famously invested his own money with his lifelong friend and tennis partner. After Neff’s retirement in 1995, Bogle said there would not be another manager like him.
He was right.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/why-john-neff-was-one-of-the-last-true-star-managers/P.S.: Vanguard began Windsor II in June 1985 after it closed Windsor to new investors because cash was flowing into the fund more quickly than it could be carefully invested. Windsor, the industry's second-largest fund, is managed by John B. Neff, one of the most prominent of all mutual-fund managers. Yet Windsor II has outpaced its big brother.
Source NYT:
