DIMENSIONAL’S QUARTERLY MARKET REVIEW (Q2 2021)
+ HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO INDEX FUNDS!

Quarterly Market Review (QMR) – Q2 2021

This report features world capital market performance and a timeline of events for the past quarter. It begins with a global overview, then features the returns of stock and bond asset classes in the US and international markets (all arrows are green this past quarter!).

The report also illustrates the impact of globally diversified portfolios and features a quarterly topic. This quarter’s topic on page 18 is: “Inflation: An Exchange Between Eugene Fama and David Booth.”

Happy 50th Birthday to Index Funds!

Index funds brought investing to the masses. And yet few marked or even noticed its 50th anniversary on July 1.

You may assume the late Vanguard founder John Bogle invented index investing. Bogle does deserve full credit for launching and popularizing the first retail index mutual fund in 1976. But before Bogle, there was John McQuown. On July 1, 1971, McQuown and his Wells Fargo team launched the world’s first private index fund for the Samsonite pension fund. Today, McQuown sits on Dimensional Fund Advisor’s board of directors.

Few of us now remember what it was like before index funds existed. But let’s not take this milestone for granted. As you consider your own portfolio’s quarterly, year-to-date, and long-term returns, let’s celebrate the half-century of advances that made your portfolio possible.

As McQuown has observed:

“Modern finance is based primarily on scientific reasoning guided by theory, not subjectivity and speculation.”

Today, unlike in 1971, every investor has access to simple, sensible, low-cost solutions for pursuing their personal financial goals.

VIEW PDF: Quarterly Market Review (QMR) – Q2 2021