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April Fools? Not Really

My previous post about Vanguard’s seeming departure from index funds was written to seem like an April Fools’ joke, but it wasn’t. All this information came from their SEC filing for the Vanguard Alternative Strategies Fund. Vanguard will still have their familiar index funds, but their lineup will also include this much more “exciting” fund.

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Comments

  1. SSTApril 2, 2015 at 9:56 AM

    A couple nice primer articles on liquid alt funds:
    http://www.convergex.com/the-share/papas-got-a-brand-new-liquid-alt

    http://www.convergex.com/the-share/liquid-alts-the-long-and-short-of-it

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Michael JamesApril 2, 2015 at 10:09 AM

      @SST: After reading those articles, I'm fairly confident that most investors would be best off if they had never heard of liquid alternative funds.

      Delete
  2. SSTApril 2, 2015 at 10:32 AM

    The inflows will definitely be fuelled by short-term reactive behaviour instead of planned proactive investment. Just like with mutual funds, there will be a handful of authentic and reputable funds which provide real value, the rest will merely suck up investor's money. But interesting and maybe worth a look if you are into that kind of thing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. geneApril 2, 2015 at 12:45 PM

    Well done Michael, the double April Fools' joke. The true fund that should be a joke.

    ReplyDelete
  4. RichardApril 2, 2015 at 1:54 PM

    Interesting that it has a minimum requirement of $250,000 to invest. It seems like Vanguard wants to be clear on who this is not intended for.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Michael JamesApril 2, 2015 at 2:55 PM

      @Richard: Good observation. I'd add that it's probably not a good idea to invest $250,000 or more either :-)

      Delete
  5. GrantApril 3, 2015 at 6:35 PM

    I'm shocked! Jack Bogle will not be happy about this, I would think!

    ReplyDelete

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