The Vanguard ETF Buffett Backed in 2014 Has Quadrupled Money
Warren Buffett endorsed a simple Vanguard ETF a decade ago. A $5,000 investment then would be worth over $20,000 today.
If you've ever wished you could just do whatever Warren Buffett says and call it a day, here's a case where that strategy would have paid off handsomely. Back in 2014, the Oracle of Omaha publicly endorsed a straightforward Vanguard ETF — and if you'd thrown $5,000 at it back then, you'd be sitting on roughly $20,465 today. That's more than four times your original investment, simply by following one of the most famous pieces of advice in modern investing.
Buffett's recommendation wasn't some complicated hedge fund play or a hot stock tip. It was a plain-vanilla, low-cost index fund tracking the broad U.S. stock market — exactly the kind of no-fuss investing he's long championed for everyday people. His point has always been that most active fund managers can't consistently beat the market over time, so why pay high fees trying? Just buy the whole market cheaply and let compounding do the heavy lifting.
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The math here is pretty compelling. A little over a decade of steady market growth turned a modest $5,000 stake into more than $20,000 — no stock-picking, no market-timing, no financial advisor required. That kind of return reflects not just Buffett's wisdom but also the remarkable bull run U.S. equities have enjoyed since 2014, powered by everything from tech sector dominance to pandemic-era stimulus.
Of course, past performance doesn't guarantee future results — that's the fine print you'll find on every investment product, and it exists for good reason. Markets don't go up in a straight line, and anyone who invested in early 2020 or late 2021 can tell you about the stomach-dropping dips along the way. But Buffett's broader argument is about discipline and time horizon: if you can stay in your seat during the rough patches, low-cost index investing has historically rewarded patience.
For anyone still on the sidelines wondering where to start, the core lesson here is refreshingly simple — a legendary investor's best public advice for regular people was essentially "buy a cheap index fund and don't overthink it." Continue reading at Yahoo Finance.
