Daniel P. Wiener is editor of The Independent Adviser for Vanguard Investors, a monthly newsletter that keeps abreast of recent developments at Vanguard, and the annual FFSA Independent Guide to the Vanguard Funds.
Through his newsletter and guide book, Dan helps tens of thousands of Vanguard investors choose wisely among more than 100 Vanguard mutual funds. The Adviser is a five-time winner of the Newsletter Publishers Foundation's Editorial Excellence Award.
Mr. Wiener is also founder and chairman of the Fund Family Shareholder Association and chairman and CEO of Adviser Investment Management, Inc., an investment advisory firm. He previously spent almost a decade writing about personal finance for US News & World Report and Fortune magazines. Mr. Wiener has also written for The New York Times and other national publications.
Sell. This fund of funds tracks the Morgan Stanley EAFE index by investing in European Index (currently about 70% of assets) and Pacific Index (the remaining 30%). It's similar to Tax-Managed International, which tracks the same index, though that fund buys stocks directly and comes with a higher minimum and more onerous back-end loads. Performance for the two has been virtually identical. Yet both ignore the emerging markets component that one finds in Total International or World ex-U.S. Index. And there's the rub. If you buy into the indexers' credo that one should index "all" markets rather than a slice of the pie, then this fund is a non-starter.
| Models | October | Year to Date |
| Growth | -2.4% | 23.0% |
| Conservative Growth | -2.1% | 19.1% |
| Income | -0.4% | 16.5% |
| Growth Index | -2.7% | 22.5% |
| The average Vanguard investor |
-1.3% | 13.8% |
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