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Re:John C. Bogle Has Died by OscarCunningham on Wednesday January 16, 2019 @07:14PM (#18927064)
I'm not convinced by the index-funds-socialism thing, but I did once have a fun realisation about index funds owning the market.

Because of short-selling, index funds could own all the market or more and active funds could still exist. For example we could imagine that index funds grow until they're 105% of the market, and active funds own 5% of the market long and 10% of it short. That adds up: 105% + 5% - 10% = 100%. And the active funds would still be doing all the price discovery. Of course the index funds wouldn't have all the assets-under-management, those would be split in the ratio 105:15 (with 10 of that 15 being collateral for the shorts).

In other words: it doesn't matter if index funds own all the shares, active funds can just make side bets with each other.

Re:John C. Bogle Has Died by nostrademons on Wednesday January 16, 2019 @08:21PM (#18927463)
Hmm. I wonder if the same thing could happen in the cryptocurrency markets, where literally 100% of Bitcoin holders lose their private keys and yet we still have active, liquid price discovery consisting of speculators making side bets on BitMex.
Re:John C. Bogle Has Died by dfischer on Wednesday January 16, 2019 @09:45PM (#18927863)
Gamblers gonna gamble.
Re:John C. Bogle Has Died by pbreit on Wednesday January 16, 2019 @10:23PM (#18928077)
Isn’t a mere 51% effective ownership?
Re:John C. Bogle Has Died by discodave on Thursday January 17, 2019 @12:49AM (#18928681)
Not for SNAP, Facebook, Google and others with gerrymandered share classes.