Centennial Speaker Series: Robin Wigglesworth on Trillions: How a Band of Wall Street Renegades Invented the Index Fund and Changed Finance Forever

Join us for a lunchtime program with Robin Wigglesworth, the Financial Times‘ global finance correspondent and author of Trillions, as he discusses 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.

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. The motley crew of nerds—including Gene Fama, Jack Bogle, John McQuown, and Nate Most—succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Passive investing now accounts for more than $20 trillion, equal to the entire gross domestic product of the U.S., and today is a force reshaping markets, finance, and even capitalism itself in myriad subtle but pivotal ways.

Agenda
12 p.m.: Welcome Remarks: Sris Chatterjee, chair, Gabelli Center for Global Security Analysis

12:03 p.m.: Speaker Introductions: David Cowen, president and CEO, Museum of American Finance

12:08: p.m.: Presentation: Robin Wigglesworth

12:45 p.m.: Audience Q&A

1 p.m.: Closing Remarks: David Cowen

About the Speaker
Robin Wigglesworth is the FT’s global finance correspondent, based in Oslo, Norway. He focuses on the biggest forces reshaping the financial system, with a particular focus on technological disruption and quantitative investing, writing longer-form features, analyses, profiles, and columns. He was previously the U.S. markets editor, spearheading the outlet’s coverage of financial markets and asset management across the Americas, deputy head of FastFT, capital markets correspondent, and Gulf correspondent.

Copies of Trillions will be raffled off to attendees.

This event is co-sponsored with the CFA Society New York, the Gabelli Center for Global Security Analysis, and the Museum of American Finance.