That observation and the similes therein are courtesy of market-indexing expert Dave Nadig, chief executive of ETF.com.
The striking quotation appears in a report by MarketWatch’s Ryan Vlastelica appearing Monday in the Wall Street Journal.
The story less memorably but as tellingly quotes Michelle Louie, co-manager of the Vanguard Group fund VFIAX, +0.37% that no less than Warren Buffett pointed to in claiming victory for his wager that a passive S&P fund could outdo a basket of hedge funds over a decade’s time, as having been struck early on by the humility on display among her colleagues, given how much money Vanguard manages. Vanguard’s fund managers, she says, view themselves as nothing more than stewards of clients’ assets.
“Index-fund managers are the underappreciated rock stars of finance,” observes Nadig.
Read on: Why academics are attacking index funds now
Plus: This unique mutual fund charges less than an index fund if it underperforms