Synopses & Reviews
During the course of his sixty-one year career, mutual fund pioneer and Vanguard Group founder John C. Bogle has seen enormous expansion and remarkable change in the financial sector of the U.S. economy. In his tenth book,
The Clash of the Cultures: Investment vs. Speculation, he brings his considerable wisdom and experience to bear on the most troubling developments of the recent erathe crowding out of long-term investment by short-term speculation.
During Bogle's career in the investment profession, he's witnessed a change in the very nature of our financial system, and not for the better. Our aggressive culture of destructive and costly speculation has come to dominate the earlier prudent culture of investment. To the detriment of our society, the idea of stewardship has gotten lost in the shuffle, replaced by salesmanship and innovations that have ill-served investors.
Far more than being a mere eyewitness to the last six decades of financial history, Bogle has been one of its most active participants. The many first-hand experiences he recounts include the creation of the first index fund and the creation of the first exchange-traded fund; and his critical role in the rise, the fall, and the renaissance of Wellington Fund, a real-world case study of the clash between investment and speculation. He sheds new light on the dramatic change in the culture of the mutual fund industry, the multiple ways in which speculation has invaded our retirement system, and the need for a federal standard of fiduciary duty.
Insightful and instructive, the book paints an alarming picture of how the financial world has moved away from a culture focused on value-adding long-term investment towards a value-destroying culture of rampant speculationand the inevitable clash of these two cultures brought about by this transformation. Bogle concludes his book by outlining ten simple investment rules to help investors avoid the many hazards of investing and, by focusing on simplicity and economy, to meet their investment goals.
Review
“
The Clash of the Cultures: Investment vs. Speculation” is a must read for investors who want to understand the forces that are working against them and what they can do about it to maximize their investment returns. It should come as no surprise to those who know Jack and his philosophy that the final words of his final book are: ‘Stay the course!’ —
Forbes
“
The Clash of the Cultures: Investment vs. Speculation is . . . an enjoyable read that ends with 10 lessons for investors that, while simple, are deeply valuable to the general public. . .
Clash of the Cultures is a great summary of the breadth of Bogle's 60-plus years in the investment field. He offers observations on the shocking change in the culture of finance that he has witnessed first-hand. Among the most important of the shifts is that short-term speculation has crowded out long-term investment. Though this has been great for the financial sector, it has come at the expense of the public.” —
CBS MoneyWatch“Bogle, as the Godfather of index investing, has ideas that are timeless and based on simple math, and at the same time exhibit uncommon sense and a routinely overlooked view of how investors are consistently overcharged by the financial services industry. Fortunately, his wisdom is widely available to everyone. Much of that wisdom has been assembled in Bogle's most recent book The Clash of the Cultures: Investment vs. Speculation (Wiley, 2012). While most of the insights are time-honored themes in the Bogle canon, they are very useful for individual investors.” — Reuters
Synopsis
How understanding the financial sector has moved from the realm of the humanities to the world of the sciencesMajor changes have taken place in the financial sector in recent years, changes that reflect two very different cultures that have existed in the world of capital formation and capital markets throughout history. The issue is, simply put, the ascendance of the culture of science (of instant measurement and quantification), over the culture of the humanities (of steady reason and rationality) in financial markets. Clash of the Cultures is John Bogle's assortment of what he deems his "Sophie's Choice" of speeches, guaranteed to excite, inspire, and motivate investors to rethink how they invest.
- Written by mutual fund pioneer John Bogle, former Vanguard Chief Executive and the "Father of Index Investing"
- Completes the trilogy of best selling books beginning with Bogle on Investing First 50 Years and Don't Count on It!
- Shows how long-term investing reflects the culture of the intellectual, the philosopher, and the historian, while short-term speculation reflects that of the statistician, the technician, and the alchemist, and how this is shifting
Insightful advice on how the financial world has moved away from placing value in a proven record of shrewd management and investor activism, Clash of the Cultures is packed with industry-defining wisdom.
Synopsis
Recommended Reading by Warren Buffet in his March 2013 Letter to Shareholders
How speculation has come to dominate investment—a hard-hitting look from the creator of the first index fund.Over the course of his sixty-year career in the mutual fund industry, Vanguard Group founder John C. Bogle has witnessed a massive shift in the culture of the financial sector. The prudent, value-adding culture of long-term investment has been crowded out by an aggressive, value-destroying culture of short-term speculation. Mr. Bogle has not been merely an eye-witness to these changes, but one of the financial sector’s most active participants. In The Clash of the Cultures, he urges a return to the common sense principles of long-term investing.
Provocative and refreshingly candid, this book discusses Mr. Bogle's views on the changing culture in the mutual fund industry, how speculation has invaded our national retirement system, the failure of our institutional money managers to effectively participate in corporate governance, and the need for a federal standard of fiduciary duty.
Mr. Bogle recounts the history of the index mutual fund, how he created it, and how exchange-traded index funds have altered its original concept of long-term investing. He also presents a first-hand history of Wellington Fund, a real-world case study on the success of investment and the failure of speculation. The book concludes with ten simple rules that will help investors meet their financial goals. Here, he presents a common sense strategy that "may not be the best strategy ever devised. But the number of strategies that are worse is infinite."
The Clash of the Cultures: Investment vs. Speculation completes the trilogy of best-selling books, beginning with Bogle on Investing: The First 50 Years (2001) and Don't Count on It! (2011)
Synopsis
Praise for The Clash of the Cultures"Jack Bogle is brilliant and persuasive, and his ability to get to the heart of complex issues is one of his greatest gifts. . . . I have come to appreciate his unique ability to speak to investors in a language that is accessible, lyrical and yet also bracing. He points out with clarity the inherent conflicts present throughout our financial markets, most notably between the investor's interests and those of many financial professionals. . . . The entire financial services industry should be glad that Bogle is merely an expert witness, and not the judge and jury as well."—From the Foreword by ARTHUR LEVITT
"A calm yet impassioned call to financial arms. A trading and speculation culture has taken over on Wall Street, pushing aside the traditions that underpin sensible investing. John Bogle speaks with great credibility and deep experience—explaining in meticulous detail exactly how powerful insiders gain and you lose. Listen to him carefully and act to protect your family's financial future."—SIMON JOHNSON, Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management, coauthor, White House Burning
"The Clash of the Cultures argues convincingly the merits of investing over speculating. Bogle's 'Stewardship Quotient' methodology helps to identify fiduciaries that value stewardship over salesmanship, an all too often mutual fund industry failure. Finally, I like his '10 Simple Rules for Investment Success,' which are logical but seldom followed. Well done!"—ROBERT L. RODRIGUEZ, CFA, Managing Partner and CEO, First Pacific Advisors
"This is vintage Bogle—a hard-hitting, no-holds-barred jeremiad showing how the culture of speculation has too often superseded the culture of long-term investing. Jack's fans will benefit particularly from his 10 simple rules comprising an optimal investment strategy for the years ahead."—Professor BURTON MALKIEL, bestselling author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street, Tenth Edition
About the Author
John C. Bogle is the founder of the Vanguard Group of mutual funds and President of its Bogle Financial Markets Research Center. He created Vanguard in 1974 and served as chairman and chief executive officer until 1996 and senior chairman until 2000. In 1999, Fortune magazine named Mr. Bogle as one of the four "Investment Giants" of the twentieth century. In 2004, Time magazine named him one of "the world's 100 most powerful and influential people," and Institutional Investor presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2010, Forbes magazine described him as the person who "has done more good for investors than any other financier of the past century." In January 2012, some of the nation's most respected financial leaders celebrated his distinguished career at the John C. Bogle Legacy Forum, held at New York's Museum of American Finance.
Table of Contents
Foreword By Arthur Levitt ix
Acknowledgments xiii
About This Book xv
Chapter 1 The Clash of the Cultures 1
Chapter 2 The Double-Agency Society and the Happy Conspiracy 29
Chapter 3 The Silence of the Funds: Why Mutual Funds Must Speak Out on the Governance of Our Nation’s Corporations 65
Chapter 4 The “Mutual” Fund Culture—Stewardship Gives Way to Salesmanship 103
Chapter 5 Are Fund Managers True Fiduciaries?: The “Stewardship Quotient” 139
Chapter 6 The Index Fund: The Rise of the Fortress of Long-Term Investing and Its Challenge
from Short-Term Speculation 167
Chapter 7 America’s Retirement System: Too Much Speculation, Too Little Investment 213
Chapter 8 The Rise, the Fall, and the Renaissance of Wellington Fund: A Case Study—Investment
Wins, Speculation Loses 251
Chapter 9 Ten Simple Rules for Investors and a Warning for Speculators 297
Appendix I: Performance Ranking of Major Mutual Fund Managers–March 2012 323
Appendix II: Annual Performance of Common Stock Funds versus S&P 500, 1945–1975 325
Appendix III: Growth in Index Funds—Number and Assets, 1976–2012 327
Appendix IV: Wellington Fund Record, 1929–2012 329
Appendix V: Wellington Fund Equity Ratio and Risk Exposure (Beta), 1929–2012 333
Appendix VI: Wellington Fund Performance versus Average Balanced Fund, 1929–2012 335
Appendix VII: Wellington Fund Expense Ratios, 1966–2011 337
Index 339