“Use the low-cost index, Luke…”
Recently a colleague told me that he’d “give that a try”. I responded (tongue in cheek of course) “Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.” In case you don’t recognize it, that’s a line that Yoda gives to Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars “Empire Strikes Back” movie. Yoda was pointing out to Luke that if he simply “tries” to undertake the action, he will not succeed. I think it shows that Yoda would also suggest a low-cost index mutual fund for investing.
If you think back to the excellent article that Sterling wrote a few weeks ago, “Not All Index Funds are Created Equal”, Sterling used a particular load mutual fund as an example. The objective of the fund (paraphrasing here):
Seeks to match the performance of the benchmark…
Let’s analyze that objective. The “benchmark” in question is an index, in particular the S&P 500 index. And the term “seeks” can be interpreted as “tries”. So the fund tries to match the performance of the S&P 500 index. It is the act of “trying” that causes costs to go up. All that “trying” by the fund manager(s) costs money after all – there are yachts to buy don’t you know?
So anyhow, if our objective as investors is to match the performance of the benchmark, why not invest in the benchmark via a low-cost index fund rather than in a fund that wastes a lot of effort (and money) “trying” to match the benchmark?
I think Yoda would heartily approve.
Sterling Raskie, MSFS, CFP®, ChFC®
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