, Columnist
Vanguard Disrupted Active Investing. Now It Could Save It.
The firm levels the playing field on fees for a fair fight between stock pickers and smart beta bots.
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Indexing pioneer Vanguard Group may be stock pickers’ last hope.
Investors are increasingly turning their stock picking over to computers. So-called smart beta exchange-traded funds track indexes that replicate traditional styles of active management such as value, quality and momentum. Investors handed $184 billion to smart beta ETFs from 2015 to 2017 while pulling $308 billion from equity mutual funds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence.