幾周前廣播裏聽到一則采訪，內容是關於HARPER'S雜誌上發表的一篇題為"What Goes Up - Does the rise of index funds spell catastrophe?"的文章。今天有空在網上找來讀了。鏈接在這裏：https://harpers.org/archive/2024/06/what-goes-up-andrew-lipstein-401k-doomsday-index-fund-catastrophe/
文章作者是一位職業作家，他采訪了Michael Green之後寫出這篇文章。Green被稱為憎恨指數基金的人，他曾為Peter Thiel在一筆交易中賺了$250 million，目前在一家基金做portfolio manager/chief strategist。Green說passive investing並不passive，其實是"active managers with the world's simplest quantitative strategy. Did you give me cash? If so, then buy. Did you ask for cash？If so, then sell. Index funds aren't merely measuring the market, they're now a major force of distortion."
他對指數基金投資的批評主要有兩個：
1）指數基金跟低進高出的原則背道而馳：某隻股票漲了, 在指數中的權重增加，新投資中更大的份額會流入這隻股。
2）“Dormant dollars (money already invested in an index) add to a stock's weight in an index but don't influence future price movements. Both active traders and changes in index-fund flows can have an outsize impact, leading to unanticipated volatility. Passive investing makes the market less elastic.”
他說index buying distortion contributed to a top-heavy, overvalued market. 他在另一個視頻采訪中說$10 million in-flow to NVIDIA stock contributed to $1 billion in NVIDIA's market cap increase。他把加息後大盤股價格仍居高不下也歸罪與index buying.
據他統計現在45%的新錢流入index funds 。是bubble中boom的階段。等到index funds裏取錢多過投錢的時候，it will hasten sell-off, turning profit-taking into panic. 可能的triggers是generational shift或者market simply becomes saturated.
文章還說Michael Burry, one of the first analysts to foresee and profit from subprime-mortgage crisis 也相信passive investing 是bubble. It will end badly.
