难以想象的是,指数跟踪投资在30年前仅以一家提包生产商投放的区区600万美元的资金起步。     如今,指数跟踪投资专家经营着全球的2.3万亿美元资产。人们普遍预计,由于养老基金和个人投资者相信“指数基金是明智之选”,未来十年这类投资的金额将急剧增加。     据美国咨询公司格林尼治同仁公司的资料,1990年,名列前茅的养老基金以16%的资产从事指数投资。到1999年,这一比率上升到28%。     迄今为止,该行业一直为少数大玩家掌控,即巴克莱环球投资公司、美国华尔街全球咨询人员公司和先锋公司。这是因为,该行业传统上一直是低佣金(因而低利润)的生意,只有大规模经营才是上策。     It is hard to ima g ine that index—trackin g investment started 30 y ears a g o this month with a mere $6m    slu g of mone y from a ba g manufacturer.     Toda y, index—trackin g s p ecialists run $2,300bn of assets around the world,and there is a g eneral ex p ectati-on that this fi g ure will g row dramatica-ll y over the next decade,as p ension funds and individual investors bu y into the idea that index funds make sense.     In 1990,16 p er cent of the to p p ension funds' assets were indexed,accordin g to Greenwich Associates, the US consultanc y.B y 1999,this had risen to 28 p er cent.     To date,the industr y has been dominated b y a handful of lar g e p la y ers: BGI,State Street Global Advisors and Van g uard.This is because it has tra-ditionall y been a low fee—and therefore low mar g in—business that onl y makes commercial sense on a lar g e scale.