Comment by Workaccount2 2 days ago
The problem with ETFs is that many of them have crazy management fees.
Don't just blindly buy an ETF that fits your investment goals. Many of those bespoke ETFs have 1%+ management fees.
You can look up how even a 1% fee can gobble up piles of money over years.
To your point though, even Berkshire Hathaway invests in VOO and SPY: https://www.morningstar.com/funds/spy-vs-voo-which-warren-bu...
I think there's value in having things diversified and rebalanced automatically, especially if you don't have any confidence in your own ability to do so. Yes, you sometimes get stuff that's overvalued and thus over-represented, but in theory if the stock tanks the portfolio will be rebalanced and thus become a smaller percentage of the total holdings.
That's why I am partial to the Vanguard funds. If you look at VUG and VTI and VOO, the fees are on the order of ~0.03-0.04%.
I know that passively-managed ETFs aren't necessarily "optimal" (as your parent comment mentioned, there's a risk of them having a few duds there for legacy reasons), but I think the value that they provide come down to the fact that they're automatically rebalanced and diversified, and 0.04% seems like a pretty reasonable cut for them doing that for me.