FYI: The person who helped inspire the passive-investing boom, the late economist Paul Samuelson, became wealthy from his active investments.
The greatest active investor of our time, Warren Buffett, advocates investing passively.
Their paths crossed, decades ago, in ways that should remind us how rare the lightning bolt of a great investing idea is—but also how huge an edge it can provide.
That’s easy to forget or ignore. Most investors are better off not trying to beat the market, instead buying passive funds that track a market index.
And investors are doing just that. For the year to date through Nov. 30, they have withdrawn $142 billion from active U.S. equity funds and added $184 billion to passive U.S. stock funds, estimates Morningstar.
Index funds have reached 48.1% of total U.S. stock-fund assets at Nov. 30, up from 44.6% one year ago. If present trends continue, says Morningstar analyst Kevin McDevitt, index funds could exceed active funds in total assets by mid-2019.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-you-can-learn-from-one-of-warren-buffetts-smartest-investors-11545411745?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1
