The 10 Best Vanguard Funds for 2020
If you're looking to upgrade your portfolio in the new year, you'd be wise to look first at Vanguard - the proprietor of low-cost, high quality funds. The best Vanguard funds tend to have similar qualities. They're inexpensive. They're easy to understand. And when they're managed funds, they're managed well.
Jack Bogle, who the world lost about a year ago, will long be remembered for his passionate advocacy of low-cost investing in general, and the index fund in particular. Pursuing those two ideas relentlessly, he built Vanguard into one of the world's largest investment companies with more than $5.5 trillion in assets.
But Bogle possessed another talent that went virtually unnoticed. He was a superior judge of actively managed mutual funds.
Consider: When Vanguard opened for business on May 1, 1975, Wellington Management - where Bogle had worked previously - was already on board. Vanguard's Wellington (VWELX) is now one of the nation's largest and most successful balanced funds with more than $110 billion in assets. And Wellington remains the subadvisor on several more Vanguard funds.
In the mid-1980s, Bogle heard that several top managers wanted to leave the American Funds, which had a reputation of being such a good place to work that no one ever left. But those managers did leave, to start Primecap Management. Vanguard Primecap () and later Vanguard Primecap Core () were launched. They've been two of the most successful mutual funds ever.
