(This article was originally published at Junk Charts, and syndicated at StatsBlogs.)
Old-timer Chris P. sent me to this Bloomberg article about Vanguard ETFs and low-cost funds (link). The article itself is interesting, and I will discuss it on the sister blog some time in the future.
Chris is impressed with this table included with the article:
This table indeed presents the insight clearly. Those fund sectors in which Vanguard does not compete have much higher costs than the fund sectors in which Vanguard is a player. The author calls this the "Vanguard effect."
This is a case where finding a visual design to beat this table is hard.
For a certain type of audience, namely financial, the spreadsheet is like rice or pasta; you simply can't live without it. The Bloomberg spreadsheet does one better: the bands of blue contrast with the white cells, which neatly divides those funds into two groups.
If you use spreadsheets a lot, you should definitely look into in-cell charts. Perhaps Tufte's sparkline is the most famous but use your imagination. I also wish vendors would support in-cell charts more eagerly.
Here is a vision of what in-cell technology can do with the above spreadsheet. (The chart is generated in R.)
Please comment on the article here: Junk Charts
