I have had a couple of interesting conversations recently about CalPERS considering going to index/passive investing. As I have noted in the past, if a major and highly influential pension fund goes that route, how long will it be until others follow, seeking both safety in numbers and the potential defense to breach of fiduciary duty claims of pointing to CalPERS’ decision as reflecting an industry-wide standard of reasonableness?

Two questions have come up in that event, however, in recent conversations I have had. First, how long will it be until fiduciaries who switch their plans to index and passive funds are sued by participants claiming they would have done better under actively managed funds, and that, given the make up of the particular participant base for that plan and their investment objectives, active investing was the prudent course? Second, and more fun/theoretical, is this: what happens when everyone follows along and goes index only? Who do you trade with on the other side of the deal, and what – if everyone is just moving along with the market index – drives the price one way or the other, when there is no one out there buying and selling in the hope of beating that index?

Both are simply theoretical concerns to a certain extent, and mostly entertaining thought experiments. But still, one has to wonder whether index investing can really be the answer to everything, in all circumstances. Seems to me that once upon a time all the funds in my 401k all held internet stocks at the same time to boost their returns, even when their stated investment objectives wouldn’t have called for those holdings, and that uniformity of approach didn’t work out too well for anyone. Maybe let a thousand flowers bloom in investment choices and approaches, anyone? Isn’t that what diversification is supposed to be – holding different categories of investments, selected in different approaches, rather than all holding the same portions of an index, all moving in lock step? One has to wonder.