Benjamin Felix

I don't think this is that.

I'm not that worried about this, but I do think it's a really, really interesting topic.

The main issue is that because their primary role is representing the stock market, some indices aim to include new IPOs soon after the company goes public.

Now, you got to think, if the purpose of the index is representing the stock market,

not being a great investment, whatever, whatever.

It's like our goal.

We are the index.

We're representing the stock market.

That makes perfect sense.

You should include IPOs.

Ideally, in an ideal world, they get included immediately as soon as they're listed.

The problem, or the nitpick at least, is that IPOs have had historically terrible returns if you invest in them soon after the IPO.

If you own private company shares before the company goes public, there tends to be a first day pop

So that can be kind of nice.

But if you buy on the secondary market, once the company's trading, the returns on average historically have been pretty terrible.

We'll come back to that later with some interesting data just on IPO returns.

But just to bring it back to index funds, index funds today control trillions of dollars.

There's one Vanguard fund with $2 trillion of assets in it.

It's a dual, it's an ETF, mutual fund share class, one of those funds, but $2 trillion between the two

share classes in one fund.