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Today's question comes from Aaron and Delaware.

I read recently that 88% of shares in the stock market are owned by three major companies, Black Rock,

State Street, and Vanguard. Should this be concerning or affect how we invest? Well, I have to plead

ignorance on the first part of that question. I don't know where you read that. I've not seen that.

I don't know if it's true. I'll cede my time to the gentleman to my left, but

it should not... The gentleman from Tennessee. That's right. It should not be concerning...

It's not... Because it doesn't concern me. Because they're not companies. That's right. They're

mutual fund companies. They manage mutual funds. They don't own the shares. I do. And Ken does.

And any of you that have a 401k does. Okay, State Street and Vanguard and BlackRock are three of the largest mutual fund families. Each mutual fund has 90 to 200

stocks in it and millions of customers. So I own shares of Vanguard, because I buy Vanguard mutual

funds sometimes. I own shares of State Street because I buy fund families that are State Street

run and operated. So these are not BlackRock and Vanguard and State Street do not have the

ability to tell any of these

companies what to do because they own shares in them because they don't really own the shares.

They're customers on the shares.

A mutual fund is where you put money in, I put money in, somebody else puts money in,

40,000 other people put money in their 401ks.

It's mutually funded.

Then that money is used to buy good, for instance, growth stocks, if it's a growth stock mutual fund.

Vanguard manages funds like that.

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