The article really needs some hard numbers, not some "whitepaper estimates". It's 500 stocks. How many randomly selected stocks do you need to almost equal the

The article really needs some hard numbers, not some "whitepaper estimates". It's 500 stocks. How many randomly selected stocks do you need to almost equal the performance? Buying a new entrant on the day it debuts is not required to come very close to matching the index performance. The article points out that Vanguard “mitigates a good portion” of the risk by gradually building positions over time in stocks. Problem solved.