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In honor of Bogle's passing, I want to point out some of his intellectual as opposed to moral contributions to finance. Contrary to what some think, Bogle wasn’t a diehard efficient marketeer like Eugene Fama.
Bogle's main argument for indexing was the “cost matters hypothesis”, which states that the net outperformance of investors as a whole is zero before costs, so reduce costs. He didn't advocate elegant but wrong nonsense like the CAPM.
Indeed, Bogle disagreed with the market in profound ways. He owned little if any foreign stock, arguing that markets didn’t fully price in American exceptionalism. His thinking was in line with Paul Samuelson’s dictum of micro efficiency, macro inefficiency.
Bogle even talked about expected stock market returns, offering a rule of thumb that expected return = div yield + 5% nominal growth +/- multiple re-rating. He even timed the market, selling stocks in 2000 because valuations didn’t make any sense.
He even owned actively managed funds (including a quant fund run by his son), bought gold, and exhibited a flexible, pragmatic streak that confused some of his self-declared adherents who understood him through soundbites.
Bogle wasn't just an advocate for low-cost passive investing. He was an "evidence-based investor" before the term even came into vogue. That meant, yes, owning active funds and sometimes timing the market. And he was largely right when he bucked the conventional wisdom.
