Siegel, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and author of the classic investing book Stocks for the Long Run<
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Sauter, chief investment officer and managing director for the Vanguard Group, countered that nontraditional indexing costs more, and that traditional index funds give investors a better chance of staying with the market. "The value of a market-cap-weighted index is that before costs investors are getting the market rate of return, because they own the market," he said. "After costs, most investors will get less than the market rate of return."
Sauter said that many investors dramatically underestimate transaction costs, meaning that in the end, a traditional index fund makes it more likely for investors to earn the market rate of return.