Index Fund Investing Case Is Stronger Than Ever, Says Random Walk Author Malkiel

When Burton Malkiel published A Random Walk Down Wall Street 50 years ago, he said a blindfolded chimpanzee throwing darts could pick a stock portfolio that would do as well as one created by experts.

The professor of economics at Princeton University argued that the smarter strategy would be to own a portfolio of all the stocks in a broad-based index — a product that didn’t exist then. Today, some $5.7 trillion sits in index funds.