MANAGING THE WORLD'S LARGEST MUTUAL FUND

For your weekend viewing pleasure, this latest segment of PBS' WealthTrack presents yet another lucrative investment opportunity.  Enjoy the weekend.  

MANAGING THE WORLD'S LARGEST MUTUAL FUND

July 20, 2023

Dear WEALTHTRACK Subscriber,

What does it take to run the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund, the world’s largest mutual fund? It turns out managing this trillion-dollar-plus behemoth is anything but a passive exercise. 

In his WEALTHTRACK debut, our guest this week is Gerry O’Reilly, the fund’s portfolio manager. But before we get into his professional credentials you might be interested to know he came to the U.S. in 1983 on a track scholarship at Villanova University, running under four-minute miles several times, and went on to represent his native Ireland in track in the 1988 Seoul Olympics.   

He is now a principal in Vanguard’s Equity Index Group where he oversees the daily trading and management of five index portfolios with total assets of approximately $2 trillion, the largest being Vanguard’s $1.3 trillion Total Stock Market Index Fund, which includes its $300 billion dollar plus ETF share class. O’Reilly is the longest-running portfolio manager of both. 

O’Reilly joined Vanguard’s trading desk in 1992 when the Total Stock Market Index Fund was launched. He then became Portfolio Manager in 1994 and has overseen its spectacular growth ever since. Total Stock Market was the first index fund to cover the entire U.S. market. It tracks the CRSP U.S. Total Market Index which includes all of the investable stocks in the U.S. market, nearly 4000 of them.

Contrary to common perception, there is nothing passive about managing an index fund, especially one of this size. In this weekend’s episode O’Reilly explains what it takes to match the index by the close of every trading day.  

In our EXTRA feature O’Reilly shares how he stays mentally and physically fit. 

If you miss the show on public television, you can watch it on our website over the weekend, along with our past programs and our guests’ One Investment recommendations.  You can also find the WEALTHTRACK podcast on Stitcher and SoundCloud as well as iTunes and Spotify.

Have a lovely summer weekend and make the week ahead a healthy, profitable and productive one!

Best regards,

Consuelo