{"id":7053019,"date":"2026-08-31T19:59:50","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T19:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/investing\/the-index-fund-turns-50-today-oblivious-investor\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T19:59:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T19:59:50","slug":"the-index-fund-turns-50-today-oblivious-investor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7053019","title":{"rendered":"The Index Fund Turns 50 Today \u2014 Oblivious Investor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>Fifty years ago today (August 31, 1976), Jack Bogle and Vanguard launched the first index mutual fund: First Index Investment Trust, which tracked the S&amp;P 500 index (and which is now known as the Vanguard 500 Index Fund).<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s hard to overstate the significance of that event, in terms of its impact on individual investors. Today, using low-cost, index-tracking funds is largely the default way to invest. The success of Vanguard\u2019s index-tracking funds \u2014 and the fact that they operated the funds at-cost \u2014 revolutionized the entire industry.<\/p>\n<h3>Other Recommended Reading<\/h3>\n<p>Thanks for reading!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h3>New to Investing? See My Related Book:<\/h3>\n<table style=\"height: 135px;\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<col span=\"2\" width=\"75\" \/>\n<tbody>\n<tr height=\"13\">\n<td width=\"160\" height=\"13\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1950967158\/?tag=obliviouspromo-20\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"padding-top: 0px;\" title=\"Investing Made Simple\" src=\"https:\/\/obliviousinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/NewBook6Covertiltedscaled.jpg\" width=\"160\" alt=\"Book6FrontCoverTiltedBlue\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td width=\"350\">\n<p><em><strong>Investing Made Simple: Investing in Index Funds Explained in 100 Pages or Less<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1950967158\/?tag=obliviouspromo-20\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"buybuttontan\" src=\"https:\/\/www.obliviousinvestor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/buybuttontan.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"120\" height=\"28\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p> <strong>Topics Covered in the Book:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Asset Allocation: Why it&#8217;s so important, and how to determine your own,<\/li>\n<li>How to to pick winning mutual funds,<\/li>\n<li>Roth IRA vs. traditional IRA vs. 401(k),<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1950967158\/?tag=obliviouspromo-20\" target=\"_blank\">Click here to see the full list<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>A Testimonial:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p> &#8220;A wonderful book that tells its readers, with simple logical explanations, our Boglehead Philosophy for successful investing.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8211; Taylor Larimore, author of <em>The Bogleheads&#8217; Guide to Investing<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"date published time\" title=\"2026-08-31T07:00:11-05:00\">August 31, 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fifty years ago today (August 31, 1976), Jack Bogle and Vanguard launched the first index mutual fund: First Index Investment Trust, which tracked the S&amp;P 500 index (and which is now known as the Vanguard 500 Index Fund). It\u2019s hard to overstate the significance of that event, in terms of its impact on individual investors. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7024996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[11460,11279,13177,14955,1513,3816],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-7053019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing","tag-fund","tag-index","tag-investor","tag-oblivious","tag-today","tag-turns"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Index Fund Turns 50 Today \u2014 Oblivious Investor - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7053019\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Index Fund Turns 50 Today \u2014 Oblivious Investor - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fifty years ago today (August 31, 1976), Jack Bogle and Vanguard launched the first index mutual fund: First Index Investment Trust, which tracked the S&amp;P 500 index (and which is now known as the Vanguard 500 Index Fund). 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