Robin Wigglesworth is the global finance correspondent at the Financial Times. He focuses on the biggest trends reshaping markets, investing, and finance more broadly across the world, and writing longer-form features, analyses, profiles and columns. Before joining the Financial Times in 2008 he worked at Bloomberg News.
About Trillions: How a Band of Wall Street Renegades Invented the Index Fund and Changed Finance Forever
From the global finance correspondent of the Financial Times, the incredible true story of the iconoclastic geeks who defied conventional wisdom and endured Wall Street’s scorn to launch the index fund revolution, democratizing investing and saving hundreds of billions of dollars in fees that would have otherwise lined fat cats’ pockets.
In Trillions Robin Wigglesworth unveils the vivid secret history of an invention Wall Street wishes was never created, bringing to life the characters behind its birth, growth, and evolution into a world-conquering phenomenon. This engrossing narrative is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand modern finance—and one of the most pressing, disruptive broader business stories of our time.
Fifty years ago, the Manhattan Project of money management was quietly assembled in the financial industry’s backwaters, unified by the heretical idea that even many of the world’s finest investors couldn’t beat the market in the long run.
A motley crew of nerds—including economist wunderkind Gene Fama, humiliated industry executive Jack Bogle, bull-headed and computer-obsessive John McQuown, and avuncular former WWII submariner Nate Most—succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Passive investing now accounts for more than $26 trillion, higher than the entire gross domestic product of the US.
Trillions is a must read for fans of Wall Street insider books by Michael Lewis, Gregory Zuckerman, and Bethany McClean. Increased market volatility has brought ETFs and index funds into the news more and more frequently; Wigglesworth outlines both the immense benefits and the growing dangers of the passive investment explosion.
Robin Wigglesworth is widely considered one of the leading journalists on passive investing, his 2018 Financial Times Magazine piece on the origins of the index fund described as seminal work. Wigglesworth is beloved for his searing analysis and sharp wit, which are on full display in this book.
