Hasta este se ha dado cuenta de las ventajas de los fondos indice,jaja.

By Howard Gold
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Out of the mouths of crooks sometimes comes truth. And you can't find a bigger crook than Bernie Madoff.

The convicted mastermind of maybe the biggest Ponzi scheme ever may have stolen $50 billion from individuals, foundations, and charities in the U.S. and Europe, ruining countless lives.

And he's paying for his crimes. While serving a 150-year sentence in a medium-security federal prison, Madoff was reportedly beaten by a fellow inmate late last year, suffering a broken nose and fractured ribs, according to The Wall Street Journal. Read WSJ story about Madoff in prison.

Reuters

Booking mug shot of Bernie Madoff

That same article revealed that Madoff spends at least some of his time dispensing investment advice to fellow inmates.

So, what does he recommend? Printing counterfeit Swiss francs? Stealing American Eagle gold coins? Investing in "sure-thing" Broadway flops like Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom?

Not at all. According to a former inmate: "'He gave me ideas on my index funds.'"

"Mr. Madoff advised him to diversify, saying he should invest in funds that track the S&P 500 index /quotes/comstock/21z!i1:in\x (SPX 1,169, -3.84, -0.33%) of stocks 'where my money would be on all the stocks instead of putting my eggs into one basket.'"

And if this good advice weren't enough, the former inmate said Madoff warned him off day trading. "'I was trying to get into day trading and he's like, 'That's not for you. That's for individuals like me with millions to spare,''" he said."

Pinch me if I'm dreaming, but doesn't that sound like advice Vanguard founder Jack Bogle might give?

It's certainly the gist of "The Elements of Investing," a short but substantive new book by former Vanguard Group board members Burton G. Malkiel and Charles D. Ellis.

Modeled after "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, the brief guide to English usage that sits on every writer's bookshelf, the new book tries to boil down decades of investing knowledge into a format average investors can use.

The co-authors previously wrote two of the seminal books about investing -- Malkiel's "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" and Ellis's "Winning the Loser's Game."

In this book, they repeat some of the home truths everybody knows but not enough follow: save money, invest early, diversify, and buy low-cost index funds.

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"The cold truth," they write, "is that our financial markets, while prone to occasional excesses of either optimism or pessimism, are actually smarter than almost all individuals. Almost no investor consistently outperforms the market either by predicting its movements or by selecting particular stocks."

Luego dicen que en la carcel no te rehabilitas.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/from-prison-bernie-madoff-channels-jack-bogle-2010-03-27