16
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Fund Family Shareholder Association
www.adviseronline.comDaniel P. Wiener
is America’s leading expert on
the Vanguard family of funds. He is founder of
the Fund Family Shareholder Association and
chairman and chief executive officer of Adviser
Investments, LLC, a Newton, Massachusetts,
investment advisory firm (800-492-6868). As
editor of
The Independent Adviser for Vanguard Investors
, he is
a five-time recipient of the Newsletter Publishers Foundation’s
Editorial Excellence Award. He also edits the annual
Independent Guide to the Vanguard Funds.
Mr. Wiener is often
quoted in the nation’s leading financial publications.
Jeffrey D. DeMaso,
Editor/Director of
Research, works directly with Dan Wiener
researching and writing the multiple-award
winning
Independent Adviser for Vanguard
Investors
newsletter. He also leads the analyst
team for Adviser Investments, LLC. Jeff gradu-
ated
magna cum laude
from Tufts University with a B.A. in
economics, holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation
and is a member of the CFA Institute and the Boston Security
Analysts Society.
DO-IT-NOW ACTION RECOMMENDATIONS
4
Gains were hard to come by in 2015, but that doesn’t tell us anything about next year or
the long run—which is what really matters. Stick to your plan with winners like
Dividend
Growth
and
International Growth
. (See page 1)
4
Tune out those economic and market pundits. (See page 4)
4
Don’t let the fact that retirement contribution limits have stalled out discourage you from
funding your IRA. Do it now. (See page 13)
VANGUARD FOUNDER
Jack Bogle
was wrong when he said investors
should opt for indexing over active
management, but he was totally cor-
rect when he wrote on the difference
that 1% in performance can mean over
time. His words: “Seemingly small dif-
ferences in annual rates of return can
result in enormous differences in total
return over long periods of time. Do
not ignore the magic of compounding.”
And how. With December’s end
marking 25 years of performance for
my
Model Portfolios
, I think it’s fair to
say that active management has more
than kept up its end of the bargain for
both you and me.
Since inception at the end of 1990,
the three original
Model Portfolios
have
generated compounded rates of return
MODEL PORTFOLIOS
Active Wins!
ranging from 8.7% for the
Income
Model Portfolio
to 11.7% for the
Growth Model Portfolio
. By compari-
son,
500 Index
has returned 9.7% over
the period, and
Total Bond Market
Index
returned 5.9%.
The
Model Portfolios’
returns were
built on the backs of terrific active
managers, low costs, and a modicum
of trading among funds. And they kept
risk in check. Despite outperforming
the stock market by more than 2% per
annum, the
Growth Model Portfolio
was slightly less volatile than the over-
all stock market. In fact, when Jack
Bogle talked about an additional 1%
in annual gains, I doubt he considered
what would happen if an investor actu-
ally earned 2% more!
The numbers speak for themselves.
n
25 Years of
Model Portfolio
Returns
——— ANNUALIZED ——— ——— CUMULATIVE RETURNS ———
10-yr 15-yr 20-yr Inception 10-yr
15-yr
20-yr Inception
Growth
7.7% 7.0% 11.0% 11.7% 109.9% 174.7% 699.6% 1502.6%
Conservative Growth
7.3% 6.5% 9.2% 10.1% 101.8% 158.0% 484.5% 1006.4%
Income
6.4% 6.0% 7.7% 8.7% 85.7% 140.5% 337.4% 699.0%
Growth Index
7.3% 6.9% 8.7% — 101.5% 170.4% 429.4% —
500 Index
7.2% 4.9% 8.1% 9.7% 100.1% 104.4% 373.7% 912.2%
Total Bond Market Index 4.4% 4.7% 5.1% 5.9% 53.2% 99.6% 171.6% 323.1%
The Ultimate
Fund Guide
WITHOUT TURNING ON A COMPUTER,
without even looking up a telephone number,
you can have at your fingertips all the data
on your favorite Vanguard funds—with the
new FFSA
2016 Independent Guide to the
Vanguard Funds
.
This year, we have more data than ever,
including our proprietary risk and return
statistics like rolling returns and Maximum
Cumulative Loss (MCL), plus our take on
new funds Vanguard plans to launch, such
as
Core Bond, Emerging Markets Bond,
International Dividend Appreciation
Index
and
International High Dividend
Yield Index
.
Even with our huge computer files and access
to fund managers, my co-editor Jeff DeMaso
and I still find ourselves thumbing through the
annual guide to find that quick MCL statistic,
fund correlation, or even a total return figure
for 2006.
My
2016 Guide
is a great resource for
me, and for you. Call Customer Service at
800/211-7641 for all the details on how to
sign up for the guide pre-publication.