Vanguard

Vanguard, the mutual-fund giant that built its business by selling no-load, low-cost funds to do-it-yourself investors, has discovered that customers want more.They want advice. On the cheap.John Brennan, Vanguard's chief executive officer and soon-to-be chairman, sees it firsthand when he holds invitation-only road shows for high-end customers.Many clients ask Brennan what funds he would pick for a certain type of investor with a given set of goals. Say, early retirement in 10 years. "They always ask for advice, which I don't give them," said Brennan.

Michael Stoiko, an engineer and writer who was an expert on Soviet rocketry and played a major role in the early days of the American space program, died in his sleep Dec. 17 at Bridges at Cornell Heights, an Ithaca, N.Y., retirement community. The former Ruxton resident was 91. Mr. Stoiko, the son of Ukrainian immigrants, was born and raised in New York City. Interested in aviation since he was a youngster, Mr. Stoiko studied aviation mechanics at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, N.Y., during the last two years of high school.

Ten police officers were sworn in yesterday as officers and board members of Vanguard Justice Society, signaling an overhaul of the advocacy group for minority police officers. Each officer and board member was newly elected -- including the president, Sgt. Darryl Massey, a homicide detective supervisor known for his interrogation skills. Massey said the 650-member group would have discussions with police leaders about what he described as a dearth of minorities and women in leadership positions.

Over the years, Howard County has earned a reputation as a progressive place. Its government has spent heavily in schools, created a fund to help residents lacking health insurance and last year banned minors from using commercial tanning beds without a doctor's prescription, a first in Maryland. Given all these — dare we say — liberal and family-friendly tendencies, it is more than a little shocking that Howard has yet to embrace the use of speed cameras to make school zones safer.

You learn early in an elementary journalism course that it isn't news when a dog bites a man. It's only news when a man (or, for that matter, a woman) bites a dog.If you apply this test, it may not be news when Vanguard, the leading sponsor of funds that match the performance of various securities indexes, launches another.But its latest launching is news.In introducing not one but three -- the Short-, Intermediate- and Long-Term Bond Portfolios of the Vanguard Bond Index Fund -- the firm brings a range of risk/reward characteristics in index-matching investments to the taxable bond fund universe.

One of the largest stock funds in the United States has announced a plan to bring in new managers for part of its portfolio, and in light of the fund's excellent record, it is worth asking whether holders should be worried about the changes.The $3.2 billion Vanguard Windsor II Fund -- the 13th largest of the nation's 1,000-plus stock funds -- has been managed by Barrow, Hanley, Mewhinney & Strauss, a firm that handles roughly three-quarters of the fund's assets, and Invesco Capital Management.

If you're one of the 4 million individual or institutional shareholders who own the $120 billion of assets held by Vanguard mutual funds, you have felt the impact of John C. Bogle on both your investment decisions and your investment returns.And even if you're invested in competitors' funds, you may have felt the impact of some of his policies.As chairman of the Vanguard Group since its formation in 1974, he has been committed to holding down costs to investors. That goal has been facilitated by a unique corporate structure: The funds jointly own the group and obtain from it, at cost, nearly all administrative, shareholder accounting and distribution services.

Say goodbye to one of Baltimore's hippest restaurants. The Vanguard Cafe on Charles Street has closed its doors after losing its lease in a dispute with a new landlord over higher rents. Its first night was Jan. 7, 1993. Wednesday night was its last.This past year has been the cafe's best, says owner Krista Apitz. "It's not due to lack of business." She regrets leaving not only the $150,000 worth of improvements she made to the building, but )) the loyal customers she's grown so fond of.So will the restaurant reopen elsewhere?

Frenzied competition among mutual fund companies for investors has led to some gimmicky marketing, a trend the Vanguard Group, known for its plain-vanilla approach to investing, has long resisted. But now, it seems, the company is succumbing.Taxes is the latest buzzword among funds, and Vanguard is jumping in with a series of funds in July that are intended to reduce shareholders' taxes while retaining stocks.But while "Vanguard's marketing department will have a field day selling these funds, investors already have better choices available at Vanguard," said Daniel P. Wiener, who edits the Independent Adviser for Vanguard Investors, a newsletter based Boston.

NEW YORK -- John C. Bogle, founder of Vanguard Group, the nation's second-largest mutual fund company, said yesterday he plans to resign as chief executive.Mr. Bogle, 66, will be succeeded Jan. 31 by his chief lieutenant, John J. Brennan, pending board approval. Mr. Bogle will remain as chairman."I believe there comes a time when a company's founder simply ought to step back from running the firm and give others a chance," Mr. Bogle said.Analysts have speculated for more than a year that Mr. Bogle would retire because of concern about his health.

Attention must be paid: A kid from Turners Station had a hand (and his Yamaha YBL-613H) in a Grammy last week. Thanks to Dwight Weems, the longtime and still-frisky front man for one of Baltimore's most popular party bands, Gazze, for pointing out the name of Douglas Purviance (Purr-vy-ance) in the music awards - specifically, in Category No. 49, Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. The award went to Vanguard Jazz Orchestra; Purviance plays bass trombone (the Yamaha YBL-613H, in fact) with the band, and he's the orchestra's business manager.

Louis F. Drummeter Jr., who worked for 32 years at the Naval Research Laboratory and helped design one of the nation's first satellites, died of a heart attack Thursday at St. Agnes Hospital. The Catonsville resident was 86. Dr. Drummeter was responsible for several discoveries, including the creation of medical equipment used in the "blue baby" operation - a procedure that saves infants born with heart defects - and a number of thermal-sensing instruments. Dr. Drummeter was born in Pennsylvania in 1921 and attended public school in Minersville, Pa. He received a bachelor's degree in physics from the Johns Hopkins University in 1943 and his doctorate in physics from Hopkins in 1949.

The Baltimore chapter of the NAACP called yesterday for an outside inquiry into the city Police Department's internal discipline process. An evening news conference at Polytechnic Institute was held by the Vanguard Justice Society, a group that represents 1,000 retired and active black city police officers. Vanguard, which also supports an outside inquiry, renewed its call for the resignation of the top commander of the internal investigations division, the top legal counsel for the Police Department and her deputy.

The Vanguard Justice Society, an organization of about 1,000 current and retired black Baltimore police officers, is calling for the resignation of the Police Department's internal affairs commander and two others, citing "disparate treatment in the department's disciplinary system." The Vanguard Society leadership wants them to resign because they believe they tried to "extort" a civil settlement from an African-American officer who has filed a lawsuit against the department. The city's top attorney denied the assertion.

Ellis A. Boston, an attorney and businessman who helped pioneer labor negotiations in Baltimore's public school system, died of lung cancer Dec. 23 at University of Maryland Medical Center. The Ellicott City resident turned 70 the day he died. Mr. Boston was born in East Baltimore near Dunbar Senior High School, the son of a steelworker father and homemaker mother. He bagged and delivered groceries and worked at Gordon's Seafood House while in elementary school and started his own car-washing business while in high school.

The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism By John C. Bogle There is no one better qualified to tell us about the failures of the American financial system and the grotesque abuses that have taken place in recent years than John Bogle, who as founder and former chief executive of the Vanguard mutual funds group has seen firsthand the innermost workings of the financial industry. "This is an important book for the post-Enron era. In his characteristic hard-hitting style, one of the legends of the mutual fund industry presents an insider's view of what's wrong with corporate America and what can be done to improve it," said Burton G. Malkiel, Princeton University.

Vanguard Group may be best known for its "passive," index-style investing, but the mutual fund giant said it will take a more activist role on issues of corporate governance: The firm has revamped the standards it will follow in proxy voting, putting companies on notice about key governance issues. Yesterday, longtime activist investors representing pension funds hailed the move by the second-largest mutual fund company, but some governance experts called Vanguard's new policies limited in scope.

Members of the Vanguard Justice Society, which represents black city police officers, criticized the organization's leadership because several candidates were excluded yesterday from the group's elections. "We have dues-paying members who are puzzled and don't know what is going on," said Detective Irvin Bradley, a former president of the group. "I'm in disbelief. The members are highly upset. ... We wanted a fair election." Leaders of the Vanguard Justice Society, which represents about 600 black city police officers, declined to say why they deleted the names of three outspoken members from ballots.

They came to Chicago from every corner of the globe - pension-fund managers, endowment managers, money managers of various types - worried that they will disappoint clients over the next few years with lackluster returns from stocks and bonds. They have been humbled by a 45 percent drop in U.S. stocks during the 2000-2002 bear market and by puny interest rates in bonds. With prices on investments from commodities to real estate and many stocks stretched to high levels by easy money flowing throughout the world, their training tells them they can't expect vibrant returns in the near future.