Nobody can establish who first used the phrase 'evidence-based investing', and no regulator defines it. Robin Powell, who was given the name by Larry Swedroe in 2015 and is sometimes wrongly credited with coining it, sets out what it actually means: four tests of what counts as evidence, borrowed from a medical parallel that hit the same crisis twelve years ago. Including where he goes further than a global tracker, and why he holds that position less firmly than he used to.
Fifty years ago this week, the first index fund for ordinary investors went on sale and almost nobody bought it. The company behind it had been named two years earlier after a ship in a picture on its founder's wall. The story Vanguard tells about its own beginnings is tidier than what actually happened, and less useful.
