"The miracle of compounding returns is overwhelmed by the tyranny of compounding costs."

"Fund investors are confident that they can easily select superior fund managers. They are wrong."

"Index funds eliminate the risks of individual stocks, market sectors, and manager selection. Only stock market risk remains."

"If the data do not prove that indexing wins, well, the data are wrong."

"It's amazing how difficult it is for a man to understand something if he's paid a small fortune not to understand it."

"Hint: money flows into most funds after good performance, and goes out when bad performance follows."

"Managed funds are astonishingly tax-inefficient."

"If your fund doesn't last for the long term, how can you invest for the long term?" "Note: over 36 years, 80% of the original 355 funds went out of existence."

"If the data do not prove that indexing wins, well, the data are wrong."

"It's amazing how difficult it is for a man to understand something if he's paid a small fortune not to understand it."

"The general systems of money management [today] require people to pretend to do something they can't do and like something they don't. [It's] a funny business because on a net basis, the whole investment management business together gives no value added to all buyers combined. That's the way it has to work. Mutual funds charge two percent per year and then brokers switch people between funds, costing another three to four percentage points. The poor guy in the general public is getting a terrible product from the professionals. I think it's disgusting. It's much better to be part of a system that delivers value to the people who buy the product."

"Surprise! The returns reported by mutual funds aren't actually earned by mutual fund investors."

"The multiple failings of our flawed financial sector are jeopardizing, not only the retirement security of our nation's savers but the economy in which our entire society participates."

"We need a mutual fund industry with both vision and values; a vision of fiduciary duty and shareholder service, and values rooted in the proven principles of long-term investing and of trusteeship that demands integrity in serving our clients."

But whatever the consensus on the EMH, I know of no serious academic, professional money manager, trained security analyst, or intelligent individual investor who would disagree with the thrust of EMH:  The stock market itself is a demanding taskmaster.  It sets a high hurdle that few investors can leap. 

While the apostles of the new so-called “behavioral” theory present ample evidence of how often human beings make irrational financial decisions, it remains to be seen whether these decisions lead to predictable errors that create systematic mispricings upon which rational investors can readily (and economically) capitalize.

[On the proliferation of ETFs], I think it's gone much too far. Most of them are not worth the powder to blow them to hell.

It's 1450 out of 1500 ETF funds that I just wouldn't touch because they're not diversified enough. Or they have some huge speculative twist to them that if you can guess the markets right you will do very well for a day or two but who can do that? Nobody.

"Now you can trade the S&P 500 Index in real time" was the slogan in the newspapers for the first ETF. What kind of nut would do that?