Brooke’s Note: Sometimes you are happy you picked up the phone. Such was the case yesterday morning when Matt DiGennaro called out of the blue to say that his RIA had helped host Tom Perez the previous evening and that he would like to contribute an account of what happened. I felt like he was offering a slice of history, of democracy at work as well. I keep wondering whether the Department of Labor’s bid to make a rule with teeth that puts investors ahead of fee extractors is real and lasting. DiGennaro’s observations allay some of this concern. When it comes to retirement money, we can finally agree that we want free enterprise, not a caveat emptor free-for-all.
“A very low-cost index fund is going to beat a majority of professionally-managed money. The gross performance [of actively managed money] may be reasonably decent, but fees will eat up a significant percentage of the returns.”
Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway
2007 Shareholders Meeting
“All the time and effort that people devote to picking the right fund, the hot hand, the great manager, have in most cases led to no advantage.”
Peter Lynch, former Fidelity Magellan Fund Manager
Beating the Street, 1993
"The industry as a whole cannot outperform the market because they are the market, and long-term statistics revealing negative returns for the class of active managers confirms it. Yet, what a price investors are willing to pay!"
Bill Gross, PIMCO Co-founder
Former Manager of World's Largest Bond Fund
