Trillions: How a Band of Wall Street Renegades Invented the Index Fund and Changed Finance Forever Paperback – 15 November 2021

GOLD. DIAMOND. PLATINUM. A MUST MUST READThis book rocketed to the list of my TOP 4 books (that have influenced and shaped me. Not a small feat!)Read it NEVER to get influenced by "Investment analysts/ stock pickers",, etc. who have very SLIM chances of beating the Indices and still wanna rob you of your money.While the book IS about Index funds and most things Finance, it goes WAY beyond investing philosophies and teaches life lessons in starting up entrepreneurship and just getting things done. How to FIGHT REJECTION. Also, how sometimes, things become FAR bigger (and dangerous) than imagined!My fav quotes / parts:"Wallace then proceeded to deliver what would become one of the most celebrated commencement speeches ever given.Two young fish swim along in the sea. They meet an older fish who casually greets them: "Morning, boys. How's the water?" The two young fish then swim on for a bit before one eventually turns to the other and asks, "What the hell is water?" Wallace's point was that the "most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.""Do you care who runs Toyota? I just want to know that the car works," observes Wiedman. "Indexing isn't personalized. It's a franchise business.""The Greek poet Archilochus once observed that the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one important thing. Bogle was the quintessential hedgehog."- The 1 million Hedge Funds vs Index Fund bet that Warren Buffet made and won."The asset management industry was never designed for those things. Instead, it was designed with opaqueness and complexity.""The net effect of the efforts of thousands upon thousands of investors continually trying to outsmart each other was that the stock market was efficient, and in practice, hard to beat. Therefore, most investors should just sit on their hands and buy the entire market."BLES—an appropriate ticker for a Bible-inspired ETF—has underperformed the global stock market since its inception. Nonetheless, Inspire has been a success, with its overall stable of biblical ETFs now managing just over $1.3 billion by the end of 2020.The ANTI Index Fund ad put out by a Rival Bank "Who wants to be operated on by an average surgeon, be advised by an average lawyer, be an average registered representative, or do anything no better or worse than average?" (Basically extorting investors NOT to accept "average returns" as the Index fund promised :))

Detailed history of Mutual Fund tools are elaborated with respect to its generator.Good to read once.

Most of the book provides a history of how the modern mutual fund industry came to be. I found the last chapter (chapter 17) especially enlightening in terms of how the system works, and the concerns that some folks have with index funds, especially with bond etf funds. I wish the book had more of these insights vs the history of how the modern index fund industry came to be

If you work in Financial market sector , no need to read it. Most of the facts you know or may know online if read bit of history. There are no insights. Good enough for lazy Sunday afternoons.

Excellent read.Recommended for all investors, Passive as well as Hedge.It answers dilemma that many investors face and experience in mismatch of returns among promise, benchmark and reality!

Very easy read and entertaining.

One of the greatest books I have read. I have a General perspective about the index fund, but never quite understand both its power and the dangers ahead. Agree with some of the crítics of the index fund, without proper regulation it will dominate the board rooms of public corporations.

Don’t miss Trillions for good reading and essential investing. Warren Buffet bet and won a million dollars just knowing what it says.You’ve undoubtedly run across bits and pieces of this story but you’re unlikely to realize how essential it is to your current and future financial health.I generally avoid books like this. Instead reading about science and medicine for work, histories to learn how survivors treat allies and taunt enemies, novels to see how precisely words can be chosen to dissect the intricacies of how we treat one another.This book tells the story of a fundamental change in how we as individuals can profitably invest our earnings throughout our lives. Others will gladly do it for us, at far higher fees and likely lower returns. In their casino, the house always wins.The story is about how tenacity seizes serendipity in the lives of those who competed against and/or stood upon the shoulders of fellow contrarians. Those who together built index investing, and wrestled the world of investing from hunches parlayed by insiders into evidence-based probabilities widely available at a fraction of the expense.The career stories of the colorful leading characters are tales told by good novels, only here true. Most of them meant to be doing something else, several were knocked flat after early success only to refuse to fail, all of them overcame the siren song to make investment money the old-fashioned way, few recognized when the time had come to retire gracefully. Knock heads they do, take big chances, learn the hard way. The same might be said and read about those intrepid scientists who successfully struggled to find a polio vaccine. Here though, the winners birth a bloodless investment revolution from which we all can now view from a higher plain the potential rewards of investing your life’s savings.The author is a financial historian rather than a banking, economics or investment insider. Readers come away with an appreciation for how and why it happened, what’s been gained, and what are the risks if it becomes too successful. It reads like a novel rather than written in financial chalk-speak. Fans of well-told histories and biographies will find themselves in familiar hands.On the factual authenticity scale, Trillions received a remarkably favorable review from Burton Malkiel whose credentials and insider knowledge rate him a superb judge of the validity of the telling here of this essential tale. Malkiel is also the author of one of a trio of other potential neighbors on a small shelf reserved for investing classics. These would be A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel, The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter Bernstein and Irrational Exuberance by Robert Shiller.Thomas W. Moloney

I found this book to be a brilliant read. It has a great flow and structure. If you have an interest in the topic, then this book is a fantastic read. I've read it cover to cover multiple times.

ワテの確定拠出年金は日経平均index fundに100%振り向けたまま。にもかかわらず、これまであまり知識がなかった資産運用業界。その変貌を主にアメリカを題材として描いた業界本だ。著者は、financial timesの記者。何となく理解していたこの資産運用業界だが、こうなっているのか。activeとpassiveの違い、そしてactiveのperformanceの首尾一貫した相対的な低さ、そしてその一因でもあるactiveのコストの高さ、passiveの成長の背後にある経済理論の実務への浸透はある程度は理解していたが、この業界の過去の変貌とpassiveの現在の規模、そして市場の寡占状態など、けっこう認識をあらたにした。その中でもプレーヤーの栄枯盛衰の部分はなかなか読ませてくれる。blacksheepとしての６０年代のwells fargoの信託部門とその先駆性、そしてそのwells fargo inveestment adivisors (WFIA)の80年代から90年代にかけての成長とbarclays global investors (BGI)との合併（その前の段階では日興証券が一時期出資していたのだが）、そして最終的にはBGIのblackrockによる買収だ。紆余曲折はあったものの、この業界はつまるところフランチャイズビジネスであり、規模の拡大こそが資産運用、特にpassiveの肝なのだ。この流れの結果、現れたのがこの業界の寡占化であり、資産運用のpassive化だ。たしかに資産運用に伴うコストは大きく下がり、それは機関投資家だけでなく、リテールの投資家にまで還元された。もはやリテールの投資家は圧倒的にpassiveに舵をきっている。ところが、このpassive化は、市場全体そして資本主義のdynamicsそして企業のcorporate governanceにも大きく影響を与えているというのだ。たしかにpassiveはその本質から言って、基本的には個々の企業業績にはあまり関心を持つ必要がない。前もって定められたそれぞれのindexの構成にしたがって、新規の資金流入を割当て行くだけ。結果としてindex算定上大きな構成を占める銘柄への投資が増えていく。いまや、三大資産運用会社、blackrock, statestreet, vanguardの持株分を合計すると、アメリカ株式会社の、最大のminority投資家なのだ。この投資家は、index投資の特性上、資金が流出しない限り、株主であり続けるのだ。となると、どうやってcorporate governanceをきかすことができるのか。逆に会社の方から見ると、このindexの構成要素に選ばれることこそが大事なのだ。そしてこのindexは特定の業者が決められた数式の下で、決められていく。そう、意図しないうちに、このindexを決めるプレーヤーが現代では資本の配分を決める新しい主人（new master of capital)なってしまったのだ。皮肉な構図だ。ところで本書に登場するnate most、もとはGetz brothersに勤めていたのようのだ。いやいや懐かしい名前だ。