Data as of Oct 27, 2026.

The IQ Investment Committee: 11 investing philosophies, applied to ETFs

11 investor traditions and the ETFIQ Skeptic review an ETF on ETFIQ data, under version 1.5 of the method, Oct 27, 2026. A Chair writes the minutes.

Bogle Graham Buffett & Munger Lynch Templeton Dalio

The ChairNever votes

Marks Druckenmiller Swensen Wood Livermore The Skeptic

No investor named is affiliated with or endorses ETFIQ. Not investment advice.

The seats

12 seats: 11 investor traditions and the ETFIQ Skeptic, all reading funds today. Method version 1.5. Every quote is checked in the investor’s own text.

In the tradition ofJohn Bogle

“Don't look for the needle in the haystack. Just buy the haystack!”

Bogle-style Low Cost

In the tradition ofBenjamin Graham

“Confronted with a like challenge to distill the secret of sound investment into three words, we venture the motto, MARGIN OF SAFETY.”

Graham-style Margin of Safety

In the tradition ofWarren BuffettCharlie Munger

“It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.”

Buffett & Munger-style Quality

In the tradition ofPeter Lynch

“You have to know what you own, and why you own it.”

Lynch-style Growth at a Reasonable Price

In the tradition ofJohn Templeton

“[I]f you buy the same securities everyone else is buying, you will have the same results as everyone else.”

Templeton-style Global Contrarian

In the tradition ofRay Dalio

“I saw that with fifteen to twenty good, uncorrelated return streams, I could dramatically reduce my risks without reducing my expected returns.”

Dalio-style All-Weather

In the tradition ofHoward Marks

“We can ride out volatility, but we never get a chance to undo a permanent loss.”

Marks-style Cycles & Risk

In the tradition ofStanley Druckenmiller

“I never use valuation to time the market. I use liquidity considerations and technical analysis for timing.”

Druckenmiller-style Macro & Liquidity

In the tradition ofDavid Swensen

“The act of diversification provides a free lunch of enhanced returns and reduced risk…”

Swensen-style Diversification

In the tradition ofCathie Wood

“The Adviser defines 'disruptive innovation' as the introduction of a technologically enabled new product or service that potentially changes the way the world works.”

Wood-style Disruptive Innovation

In the tradition ofJesse Livermore

“Profits always take care of themselves but losses never do.”

Livermore-style Trend Following

ETFIQ’s own seatThe ETFIQ Skeptic

What does the name leave out?

How a review runs

Each seat reads the fund

Its rules run on ETFIQ’s dated data.

Each seat gives a state

The Chair writes the minutes

Agreements, splits and open questions.

SupportsMixedChallengesNot enough data

How the committee works

Open

Version 1.5, published Oct 27, 2026: 12 seats, 12 with their method published here.

A number marked ETFIQ is one ETFIQ computed. Every other number is the issuer’s or the exchange’s, and is labeled that way.

Where each quote comes from

John Bogle: The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, 10th anniversary edition (Wiley, 2017), chapter 10

Benjamin Graham: The Intelligent Investor, chapter 20, "'Margin of Safety' as the Central Concept of Investment," opening paragraph; p. 512 of the 2003 HarperBusiness revised edition

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger: Berkshire Hathaway 1989 letter to shareholders (dated March 2, 1990), section "Mistakes of the First Twenty-five Years (A Condensed Version)."

Peter Lynch: Beating the Street (Simon & Schuster, 1993), "20 Golden Rules," p. 303 of the hardcover

John Templeton: 16 Rules for Investment Success, rule 4, Franklin Templeton reprint, p. 5

Ray Dalio: Principles: Life and Work (Simon & Schuster, 2017), part I, "Where I'm Coming From," section "Discovering the Holy Grail of Investing," p. 56

Howard Marks: "Risk Revisited," memo to Oaktree clients, Sept 3, 2014, p. 1, section "What Risk Really Means."

Stanley Druckenmiller: Interview, in Jack D. Schwager, The New Market Wizards (HarperBusiness, 1992), chapter "Stanley Druckenmiller: The Art of Top-Down Investing," p. 196

David Swensen: Unconventional Success (Free Press, 2005)

Cathie Wood: ARK ETF Trust, prospectus, ARK Innovation ETF summary, "Principal Investment Strategies," filed with the SEC Nov 26, 2025

Jesse Livermore: How to Trade in Stocks (Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1940), chapter I, "The Challenge of Speculation," p. 21 of the Investors' Press reprint of 1966

Scope

Put one ETF, several ETFs or a model in front of the committee in askIQ. Each seat applies one investor’s published principles to ETFIQ data. Each voting seat states one of four results; a seat whose investor judges by observation, not calculation, prints dated observations and gives none.

The committee gives no advice. It records findings, agreement, disagreement and open questions. Every number comes from ETFIQ data and carries its date.

Each criterion is sourced to the investor’s own published words. Peer-reviewed research is a second layer on how each is measured: 8 of the 48 published criteria carry research that supports their measure. Seats do not question their investor: research against 10 of the measures is the ETFIQ Skeptic’s evidence, listed on its page and in the method.

Seats are named by philosophy. The investor appears as a byline and one sourced quotation: no voice, no likeness. A name comes off the day its person objects.

We know of no other service that tests ETFs against rules drawn from these investors' published writing, holding by holding where the rule is about companies, with each rule's source and ETFIQ's own thresholds shown. Checked October 21, 2026.

No investor named is affiliated with or endorses ETFIQ. Not investment advice.

Choose who sits: all seats, any subset down to one, or a bench. The Chair always sits. The Skeptic sits unless you remove it.

Cost & diversification: Low Cost, Diversification, The Skeptic
Risk bench: All-Weather, Diversification, Macro & Liquidity, Cycles & Risk
Income & cost: Low Cost, The Skeptic, Cycles & Risk

The seats, the question each asks, and how strong its sources are
Seat	Tradition	Question	Sources	Version
Bogle-style Low Cost	in the tradition of John Bogle	What does this really cost you to own?	strong	2.0
Graham-style Margin of Safety	in the tradition of Benjamin Graham	Are you paying less than the holdings are worth?	strong	1.0
Buffett & Munger-style Quality	in the tradition of Warren Buffett & Charlie Munger	Durable, high-return businesses?	strong	1.0
Lynch-style Growth at a Reasonable Price	in the tradition of Peter Lynch	Is the growth worth the price?	strong	1.1
Templeton-style Global Contrarian	in the tradition of John Templeton	What is out of favour, and is it cheap?	strong	1.4
Dalio-style All-Weather	in the tradition of Ray Dalio	How does it fare when rates, inflation and growth shift?	strong	1.2
Marks-style Cycles & Risk	in the tradition of Howard Marks	What is the market's temperature, and how much of the fund is in it?	strong	4.0
Druckenmiller-style Macro & Liquidity	in the tradition of Stanley Druckenmiller	Is the Fed adding money or taking it away?	interviews and writings	2.1
Swensen-style Diversification	in the tradition of David Swensen	How many real bets do you own?	strong	2.1
Wood-style Disruptive Innovation	in the tradition of Cathie Wood	How much of the fund is in ARK's five platforms?	firm research	4.0
Livermore-style Trend Following	in the tradition of Jesse Livermore	Is the trend with you or against you?	interviews and writings	1.3
The ETFIQ Skeptic	ETFIQ's own seat, using ETFIQ's measures	What does the name leave out?	etfiq	2.2

Definitions and method

Each seat reads a few criteria. Each criterion compares one ETFIQ measure with two thresholds, and the seat page says whose each threshold is.

Supports (ETFIQ): The seat's criteria, read on ETFIQ data, point the same way as the investor's published principles.
Mixed (ETFIQ): Some criteria point each way, or the numbers sit between the seat's two thresholds.
Challenges (ETFIQ): The seat's criteria, read on ETFIQ data, run against the investor's published principles.
Not enough data (ETFIQ): Too little of the seat can be measured for this subject.
Does not apply (ETFIQ): The subject is outside the seat's scope (a T-bill fund on the trend seat, a bond fund on Templeton's); the seat gives no reading.

How a seat reaches its state

Each criterion reads one measure against the seat's two thresholds: Supports where the supports condition holds, Challenges where the challenges condition holds, Mixed between them, Not enough data where the measure is missing. A criterion whose scope does not cover the subject is left out, and a seat whose scope does not cover it does not apply. The seat's score is the weighted mean of its readable criteria at +1, 0 and -1. A criterion marked veto that Challenges makes the seat Challenge, whatever the rest reads or could not read. Otherwise the seat reads Not enough data when the criteria it could read carry less than half of its weight, or when a criterion marked required cannot be read; it Supports at 0.5 or more and Challenges at -0.5 or less, and is Mixed between. A criterion that caps the seat keeps it from Supporting when it Challenges. A criterion the seat needs keeps it from Supporting unless it reads Supports itself. A seat that reads a fund's holdings states its own rule on its page.

In compare mode each seat orders the funds by its state first (Supports, then Mixed, then Challenges, then Not enough data) and by its score within a state, highest first; a tie is broken by the seat's tie-break measure. A fund the seat Challenges never ranks above one it Supports. A line marked like for like that one fund in a comparison cannot read is read on none of them.

How the seats are tested

Every voting seat carries 3 to 5 textbook cases with the result it must give, such as a 0.03% index fund for the Low Cost seat. A seat that misses its textbook case does not ship. A seat that observes carries cases proving it gives no state. Each seat page lists its cases.

What this cannot tell you

1 Whether to own a fund. The committee applies principles to data; it does not know your goals, taxes or other holdings.

2 What the investor would say. A seat follows published principles, never the person’s view of any fund.

3 What ETFIQ data does not carry. Each seat page lists what its method needs and cannot measure.

How to check any of this

Every seat, criterion, threshold, weight and test case is in one file. The committee reads that file, and so does this page.

Every published number is free as JSON on the open data page. Use ETFIQ's numbers with attribution and the as-of date. Issuer data stays under its owner's terms. Independent code recomputes every number nightly from the raw sources, and the statistics page shows the result. Errors are listed on the corrections page.

A number marked ETFIQ is one ETFIQ computed. Every other number is the issuer’s or the exchange’s, and is labeled that way.

Where to next

Low Cost→Margin of Safety→Quality→Growth at a Reasonable Price→Global Contrarian→All-Weather→Cycles & Risk→Macro & Liquidity→Diversification→Disruptive Innovation→Trend Following→The Skeptic→The whitepaper→askIQ→Every method→

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ETFIQ, The IQ Investment Committee: 11 investing philosophies, applied to ETFs, data as of Oct 27, 2026. https://etfiq.com/investment-committee/

Open data →

Free to use with attribution for data ETFIQ computes; issuer data stays under its owner's terms. The underlying files are at Open data.