John Bogle on Oblivious Investing

John Bogle–founder of Vanguard and creator of the first index fund–was recently interviewed by Steve Perlstein of “On Leadership.” In the interview, he made two statements that concisely sum up everything that I advocate on this blog:

Try and avoid the worst hazards of behavioral investing. Follow the basic rule that I follow: Don’t peek. Don’t look at your account. Throw the 401k statement in the trash when it comes.

Agreed. The more often you look at your account, the more you’ll worry about it, and the more likely you are to do something you’ll regret later.

And later in the interview…

The attitude is to try and have an investment portfolio that you don’t need to worry about. To file it and forget it.

Having enough confidence in your plan that you don’t even bother to look at your account statements–what could be more wonderfully worry free (i.e., “Oblivious”) than that? 🙂