Meet with PWL Capital: https://pages.pwlcapital.com/en-ca/contact-us?utm_source=content&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=rationalreminder_yt Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) and Vanguard have intersecting histories rooted in the development of the first-ever index fund. Vanguard's market-cap weighted index funds have been nothing short of revolutionary and they became synonymous with sensible investing for many good reasons, but Dimensional took implementing the ideas from academic finance a few steps further, leading to their own deserved acclaim. In today’s episode, Ben and Dan analyze over 30 years of history between DFA and Vanguard, from their founding and relationship to their rise as global leaders in asset management. We discover how their approaches to foundational finance theory differ, whether diversification is mostly semantics, and how DFA and Vanguard compare to one another over 25 years of matched US-domiciled mutual funds. We also discuss which approach is easier to implement, essential insights for fund advisors, DFA’s downsides despite its long-term outperformance of the Vanguard 500, and an uplifting cancer update from Ben in today’s After Show. For practical investment takeaways, tune in today! Links From Today’s Episode: Rational Reminder on iTunes — https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-rational-reminder-podcast/id1426530582 Rational Reminder Website — https://rationalreminder.ca/ Rational Reminder on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/rationalreminder/ Rational Reminder on X — https://x.com/RationalRemind Rational Reminder on TikTok — www.tiktok.com/@rationalreminder Rational Reminder on YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/channel/ Rational Reminder Email — info@rationalreminder.ca Benjamin Felix — https://pwlcapital.com/our-team/ Benjamin on X — https://x.com/benjaminwfelix Benjamin on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminwfelix/ Dan Bortolotti on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-bortolotti-8a482310/ Canadian Couch Potato — https://canadiancouchpotato.com/ Dimensional — https://www.dimensional.com/ Vanguard — https://investor.vanguard.com/ ‘Remembering John “Mac” McQuown, Whose Curiosity Drove a Life of Innovation’ — https://www.dimensional.com/dk-en/insights/remembering-john-mac-mcquown-whose-curiosity-drove-a-life-of-innovation ‘Episode 182: John “Mac” McQuown: The Data Will Sort That Out’ — https://rationalreminder.ca/podcast/182 Wells Fargo — https://www.wellsfargo.com/ ‘Episode 131: David Booth: The First Index Fund, Competing Fiercely, and Keeping it Simple’ — https://rationalreminder.ca/podcast/131 William F. Sharpe | Stanford University — http://web.stanford.edu/~wfsharpe/bio/bio.htm ‘Episode 316 - Andrew Chen: "Is everything I was taught about cross-sectional asset pricing wrong?!"’ — https://rationalreminder.ca/podcast/316 Marco Salmon on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/marco-a-salmon-a63512284 Books From Today’s Episode: The Incredible Shrinking Alpha — https://www.amazon.com/dp/0857198246 Papers From Today’s Episode: ‘The relationship between return and market value of common stocks’ — https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-405X(81)90018-0 ‘Market Efficiency’ — https://www.jstor.org/stable/246460 ‘The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns’ — https://doi.org/10.2307/2329112 ‘A Five-Factor Asset Pricing Model’ — https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2287202 ‘The Performance of Mutual Funds in the Period 1945-1964’ — https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.244153 ‘The Death of Diversification Has Been Greatly Exaggerated’ — https://ssrn.com/abstract=2998754