Stop looking at mutual fund expense ratios

The Investment Company Act has been the curse of mutual funds since it was first passed in 1940 (the “’40 Act”). If you’re old enough to remember the Roaring Twenties, then you’re old enough to remember the proliferation of unregulated investment pools that precipitated the market crash of 1929.Many unsuspecting folks lost their entire nest eggs in these pools and their lives suffered for it.

As a result, the sale of investment pools were severely restricted. It wasn’t until Glass-Steagall allowed banks to commingle funds of trusts through the Banking Act of 1933 that investment pools returned. Their full scale return to public investors didn’t occur until the passage of ’40 Act.