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I disagree with #2. I'm an individual investor. I can get into vanguard index funds for around a 0.05 fee, depending on the fund. The author estimates that the

I disagree with #2. I'm an individual investor. I can get into vanguard index funds for around a 0.05 fee, depending on the fund. The author estimates that the NYC pensions were paying a roughly 0.25 fee on their funds. That's a $10 billion customer paying 5X in fees what a small investor like me pays. I think that's insane.

jevgeni 12y ago
But they aren't buying index funds..?
- harmegido 12y ago
  They should be. There's no way the 5X charge is worth the active management. And yes, I realize that in this 10 year period it was, but that's just variance.
  - danielweber 12y ago
    Why is 5X "too much"? That's 5X of a very small amount. I would happily quintiple my risk of dying from a meteorite strike for $20,000.
- kaybe 12y ago
  How much would you expect for index funds?
  - bradleyjg 12y ago
    Vanguard has a total US stock market fund for institutional investors, with a minimum investment of $200M, that has an expense ration of 2 basis points (.02%) The FTSE world ex US fund is 10 basis points and a $100M minimum. At $57B and $27B invested respectively I imagine the city could negotiate an even better deal if it was going to put all the money in each category into a single fund. That said, the author of the linked article does have a point. The expense numbers on the public market side don't look outlandish when expressed as an expense ratio rather than a ten year total number.
- jib 12y ago
  The argument is they are gambling with just a downside, so why are they not just buying indexed funds, right? If you lose money on actively managed funds, you lose the money. If you win money on actively managed funds, you get a small part of the win, and give away a large part of the win to the guy who was gambling (how large is clearly a contract question). If the part you give away is too big, you are playing a fools game. The article isnt describing how much was fixed costs and how much were bonuses paid on outperforming funds, so it's hard to tell if they are indeed playing a fools game, but it seems at least possible. Why pay someone to gamble for you if he will take 95% of the winnings but not eat any of the losses? If this is this because the managed accounts actually under-performed to expectation - ok. If it is because you're paying too big bonuses on exceeding some easy to reach baseline - not ok. I think that is a reasonable argument. .
  - hkmurakami 12y ago
    The article suggests that the fees were comprised of management fees only. This is a common structure for "long only" management funds that limit their exposure to public equities and are under significant restraints in how "creative" they are allowed to be.
    - jib 12y ago
      But that is even worse, right? That is paying a fixed price for someone to gamble for you. If you look at it objectively, a more sane pricing model would be that you get a discount on the flat fees compared to what you would pay for a non-managed fund, but with a bonus paid on earnings. The value proposition from the fund managers is that they can significantly outperform a non-managed fund. If that is true, then what they lack is capital to actually play on a large enough scale (if they had the capital they would just play with their own money after all). Pension funds have a large amount of capital that they want to accrue interest on. The win-win scenario is that the fund managers agree to handle the money at a lower cost than what having them in some form of indexed managed would be, but that in return they take a share of any profits that are generated. If you just add on a flat % fee that is higher than what the indexed fund would charge, then the fund manager isnt assuming any risk.
jackgavigan 12y ago
> The author estimates that the NYC pensions were paying a roughly 0.25 fee on their funds. Where does it say that? I just did search on the web page and the string "25" doesn't appear anywhere. Perhaps you're rounding up from this number: "total fees of about 0.24 percent a year on all assets, including private assets." If you are, you're not comparing like with like. The closest equivalent in the article to your index funds is this: "The fees that NYCERS pays for U.S. domestic public equities are about 0.08 percent a year". So we're now comparing 0.05% for an index fund vs 0.08% for "US domestic public equities", which almost certainly includes actively-managed funds, which incur higher fees than an index fund (e.g. Vanguard's average active fund expense ratio is 0.27%[1] vs 0.13% for index funds[2]), which would explain the 0.03% difference. 1: https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/actively-managed https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/actively-managed 2: https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/index-funds https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/index-funds

jevgeni 12y ago

But they aren't buying index funds..?

harmegido 12y ago
They should be. There's no way the 5X charge is worth the active management. And yes, I realize that in this 10 year period it was, but that's just variance.
- danielweber 12y ago
  Why is 5X "too much"? That's 5X of a very small amount. I would happily quintiple my risk of dying from a meteorite strike for $20,000.
kaybe 12y ago
How much would you expect for index funds?
- bradleyjg 12y ago
  Vanguard has a total US stock market fund for institutional investors, with a minimum investment of $200M, that has an expense ration of 2 basis points (.02%) The FTSE world ex US fund is 10 basis points and a $100M minimum. At $57B and $27B invested respectively I imagine the city could negotiate an even better deal if it was going to put all the money in each category into a single fund. That said, the author of the linked article does have a point. The expense numbers on the public market side don't look outlandish when expressed as an expense ratio rather than a ten year total number.
jib 12y ago
The argument is they are gambling with just a downside, so why are they not just buying indexed funds, right? If you lose money on actively managed funds, you lose the money. If you win money on actively managed funds, you get a small part of the win, and give away a large part of the win to the guy who was gambling (how large is clearly a contract question). If the part you give away is too big, you are playing a fools game. The article isnt describing how much was fixed costs and how much were bonuses paid on outperforming funds, so it's hard to tell if they are indeed playing a fools game, but it seems at least possible. Why pay someone to gamble for you if he will take 95% of the winnings but not eat any of the losses? If this is this because the managed accounts actually under-performed to expectation - ok. If it is because you're paying too big bonuses on exceeding some easy to reach baseline - not ok. I think that is a reasonable argument. .
- hkmurakami 12y ago
  The article suggests that the fees were comprised of management fees only. This is a common structure for "long only" management funds that limit their exposure to public equities and are under significant restraints in how "creative" they are allowed to be.
  - jib 12y ago
    But that is even worse, right? That is paying a fixed price for someone to gamble for you. If you look at it objectively, a more sane pricing model would be that you get a discount on the flat fees compared to what you would pay for a non-managed fund, but with a bonus paid on earnings. The value proposition from the fund managers is that they can significantly outperform a non-managed fund. If that is true, then what they lack is capital to actually play on a large enough scale (if they had the capital they would just play with their own money after all). Pension funds have a large amount of capital that they want to accrue interest on. The win-win scenario is that the fund managers agree to handle the money at a lower cost than what having them in some form of indexed managed would be, but that in return they take a share of any profits that are generated. If you just add on a flat % fee that is higher than what the indexed fund would charge, then the fund manager isnt assuming any risk.

jackgavigan 12y ago

> The author estimates that the NYC pensions were paying a roughly 0.25 fee on their funds. Where does it say that? I just did search on the web page and the string "25" doesn't appear anywhere. Perhaps you're rounding up from this number: "total fees of about 0.24 percent a year on all assets, including private assets." If you are, you're not comparing like with like. The closest equivalent in the article to your index funds is this: "The fees that NYCERS pays for U.S. domestic public equities are about 0.08 percent a year". So we're now comparing 0.05% for an index fund vs 0.08% for "US domestic public equities", which almost certainly includes actively-managed funds, which incur higher fees than an index fund (e.g. Vanguard's average active fund expense ratio is 0.27%[1] vs 0.13% for index funds[2]), which would explain the 0.03% difference. 1: https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/actively-managed https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/actively-managed 2: https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/index-funds https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/index-funds