Gus Sauter, the 58-year-old outgoing chief investment officer of The Vanguard Group [profile], chatted with Barron's about the future of the markets, which he said will experience continued growth in exchange-traded funds.

During the Q&A, Sauter said the following:

I think we'll see continued growth of ETFs, especially more active strategies. Asset managers are just starting to realize that ETFs are a distribution tool, that it's a way to make your fund available to investors. The original thought was that ETFs are a great new product. For the most part, people are now realizing it's not a new product; it's a new way to distribute a product.

The primary driver for this continued growth is cost, he said.

The real argument is low-cost investing versus high-cost investing, not active versus passive. The handicap is that active investing is very high cost, and net returns are a function of cost. If you can implement a low-cost active strategy, that could be very good.

Read about Sauter's insights on a variety of topics in theBarron's article. 

Edited by: Tommy Fernandez


Stay ahead of the news ... Sign up for our email alerts now
CLICK HERE