Vanguard Group saw another record year, as investors poured close to $236 Billion into the mutual-fund company, emphasizing even more emphatically the continuously growing shift away from traditional financial managers who focus on handpicking individual winning stocks, writes Sarah Krouse for the Wall Street Journal.

According to the research firm Morningstar Inc., Vanguard’s impressive influx for 2015 represents the largest ever annual inflow of money into a mutual-fund company as the Malvern based company surpassed its own record from last year during which it managed to attract $214.5 billion.  

Vanguard, which is the pioneer in low cost, passively managed products, also saw its U.S assets under management rise to over $3.1 trillion last year.

The rise of funds that focus on a hands-off approach to investing started eight years ago after the last big financial crisis that proved to investors that more expensive experts did not automatically mean protection from financial losses.

Unlike their active counterparts, index funds do not need to evaluate stocks and bonds individually, allowing them to reduce expenses and with that, reduce the costs charged to investors.

As the most recent Morningstar data shows, the trend did not slow down during 2015, despite the volatile financial markets affecting investors across the country.

Actively managed funds had a total of $139.5 billion pulled out of them, while investors showed their confidence in passively managed funds by adding $361.8 billion to them from January to November last year.

The biggest winner in this shift has been Vanguard that launched its first index funds for individual investors nearly forty years ago.

The company, with the majority of its products consisting of passively managed funds and only a few active ones, has been aggressively and successfully pursuing market share through its strategy of undercutting other funds fees in order to stay ahead of the competition.

According to Morningstar, investors pay only 18 cents for every $100 they invest in Vanguard, while investors can expect to spend an average of $1.23 in fees per $100 for an actively managed fund and an average of just under 90 cents for other passively managed funds.