Jack Bogle’s Bogleheads Keep Investing Simple. You Should Too.

Introductory note:

I’ve known Jack Bogle, the founder of The Vanguard Group, since (if I remember right) 1992. Back then, I thought index funds were a great idea that would probably never catch on the way they deserved to. I also thought he was crazy for saying that someday an index fund would become the world’s largest mutual fund and that indexing would eventually become the investment strategy of choice for most people. Jack Bogle turned out years ago to be right on the first point, and he’s well on his way to being proven correct on the second.

In 2001, I wrote an article that still remains one of my all-time favorites, “Here Come the Bogleheads,” on the second annual meeting of Bogle’s quirky fan club. That visit with them helped me formulate a strategy for investing peace-of-mind that I call “I Don’t Know and I Don’t Care.”

This year, I decided it was time to catch up with the Bogleheads, so I spent a couple days with them at their latest rendezvous. The group was about seven times the size it was back in 2001, much younger and much more diverse, but as smart and enthusiastic — and quirky — as ever. There’s still a lot the rest of us can learn from them. Read on….

This week, 200 investors met in Pennsylvania at a conference that is a cross between a religious revival and an M.B.A. finance class.

The Bogleheads, as the group is known, converged to thank their hero, Vanguard Group founder John C. Bogle. They also came to swap stories and advice about investing—and to be part of a community reinforcing the message that investing can be simple as pie and cheap as dirt….