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[原创] 对于目前流行的量化投资与smart beta策略的一些看法 （附免费文献10篇）
Vanguard Sets Record Funds Inflow
Investors gave stock pickers a resounding vote of no confidence in 2014, pouring USD 216 billion—a record inflow for any mutual-fund firm—into Vanguard Group, the biggest provider of index-tracking products, according to preliminary figures from the mutual-fund group.
Those large inflows accentuate a trend away from fund managers and toward so-called passive investments that mimic indexes and other benchmarks for a fraction of the cost of the typical mutual fund.
Active investments have been hurt by years of subpar performance and high fees. Data through November, the latest available, show investors pulled USD 12.7 billion in 2014 from actively managed U.S. stock funds while plowing USD 244 billion into similar passively managed funds, according to fund-research firm Morningstar Inc.
Even hedge funds, which cater to wealthy investors, have lost some of their shine. Hedge funds lagged behind major indexes in 2014 by a wide margin but still continue to attract money.
The merits of passive investing are becoming conventional wisdom among retail investors. In addition, many financial advisers have incentives to recommend low-cost funds because they can charge their own fees without giving investors sticker shock.
Vanguard, which has long sold index and exchange-traded funds that track baskets of securities, has been the prime beneficiary of the shift, said analysts and industry observers.
The Malvern, Pa., company’s latest inflows in the U.S. top the previous annual record, also set by Vanguard, in 2012. The last time a mutual-fund company that wasn’t Vanguard set an annual record for investor inflows was 2004, when Los Angeles-based American Funds saw USD 89.7 billion for the year, according to Morningstar.
Vanguard said it had an estimated USD 31 billion of inflows in December, its highest monthly total ever. The company surpassed USD 3 trillion in assets under management in September and is the country’s largest mutual-fund firm. The firm with the second-highest inflows through November was Dimensional Fund Advisors, with USD 26.2 billion, according to Morningstar.
F. William McNabb III, Vanguard’s chairman and chief executive, said in an interview that Vanguard doesn’t set growth goals and tries to avoid a “sales culture” in which profit trumps investor interest. He said the company spent less on advertising in 2014 than in a typical year and hasn’t made significant additions to its sales force.
But Vanguard in recent years has made aggressive moves to help it gain market share at the expense of Fidelity Investments and other rivals. Vanguard has emphasized customer service, expanded outside the U.S. and rolled out new products such as a method of portfolio management that relies on computerized algorithms.
Performance also is behind the shift. Through Dec. 29, about 74% of active stock funds in the U.S. were underperforming their category benchmarks, according to Morningstar. The S&P 500 gained about 15.4% during the period. One of Vanguard’s largest funds, the USD 198 billion Vanguard 500 Index fund, has matched the index’s gains.
Meanwhile, Vanguard is undercutting many rivals on fees. Investors pay 18 cents for every hundred dollars they invest with Vanguard, compared with USD 1.24 for the average actively managed mutual fund, Morningstar said. The company also is beating its passive rivals, which charge an average of 77 cents for every hundred dollars.
Vanguard’s corporate structure lets it keep fees low. It is owned by its funds, which in turn are owned by their shareholders. Vanguard operates “at-cost,” charging the funds only enough to cover its cost of operations.
Other fund companies, including BlackRock Inc. and Charles Schwab Corp. , have cut fees but haven’t attracted as many investors as Vanguard, said Daniel Wiener, who publishes an independent newsletter for Vanguard investors.
John Aravosis, a self-employed writer in Washington, D.C., said he moved his individual retirement account into Vanguard in mid-2014 after he realized he was paying nearly half his yearly savings allotment in fees to a longtime broker. He said the performance of his IRA also suffered, causing him to lose out on thousands of dollars in stock-market gains, and that he felt “utterly cheated and violated” by how much he had paid in the past.
Mr. Aravosis, 51 years old, said he has since persuaded his mother and father to move their retirement savings to Vanguard and is helping his brother move his money.
There are dangers for mutual-fund companies when their funds grow too big, said analysts and industry observers. When funds swell in assets, it becomes harder for managers to trade effectively. That can affect returns for existing shareholders.
Mr. McNabb said Vanguard is aggressive about closing funds to new investors when managers believe performance is at risk.
Also, Vanguard has been riding a wave of rising markets. A widespread downturn could steer investors back to stock pickers if they are able to outperform benchmarks during that time, analysts said.
Vanguard’s strategy has pushed large institutional and individual investors to move their money.
The pension fund for Montgomery County, Pa., in 2013 made the unusual decision to move the bulk of its USD 470 million in assets into Vanguard’s index funds after fund officials spoke with Vanguard’s former chief executive, John “Jack” Bogle. Since then, the fund has seen a return of 12.7% and saved about USD 1.3 million on fees, said Josh Shapiro, chairman of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners who serves as chairman of the pension fund’s board.
Mr. Shapiro said he frequently fields calls from other pension funds interested in moving to index funds and is trying to persuade the state’s other two pension funds to move more toward indexing.
While it isn’t possible to directly track investor money from one company to the next, Vanguard also appeared to get a boost from the roughly USD 80 billion that has fled Pacific Investment Management Co.’s flagship Total Return Bond fund since the departure of star manager Bill Gross at the end of September.
In October, the first full month after Mr. Gross left, Vanguard saw inflows of USD 10.3 billion into its Vanguard Total Bond Market Index fund, the fund’s highest monthly inflow ever.
Vanguard also may have gotten a boost last year from Warren Buffett , who recommended Vanguard’s S&P 500 index fund in his letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Michael Klein, 34, an account executive at a marketing and sales firm in Corona, Calif., said he was having little success picking stocks for his retirement portfolio when he learned about Vanguard. He said he is moving his portfolio to the firm’s index funds. “Active managers can’t reliably beat the market consistently over time,” he said.
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