The age old “Set-It-and-Forget-It” Strategy May Be Masking Systemic Risk. For the last two decades, the financial industry has pushed one dominant idea: invest in low-cost index ETFs, sit tight, and you’ll be rewarded. It’s the religion of passive investing — low fees, broad diversification, historical returns. This idea has been sold as almost infallible. But what if that narrative is now distorted beyond recognition?

When you examine how capital flows today, the behavior of index investors, and the mechanical structure of ETFs, unsettling parallels emerge — especially when compared to classic Ponzi schemes and the pre-2008 mortgage-backed securities (MBS) bubble.

Let’s unpack this.

🔍 What Is a Ponzi Scheme?

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation where returns to existing investors are paid not from legitimate profit, but from new investor capital. It’s built on a few recognizable characteristics:

🟠Returns rely on continued new inflows

🟠There’s no true economic engine or value creation

🟠Assets are often opaque or misunderstood

🟠Earlier participants benefit more than later ones

🟠Momentum builds through narrative, not merit

🟠Eventual collapse occurs when new flows dry up

Now, passive index investing isn’t illegal or deliberately deceptive — but ask yourself: how many of these characteristics are now mirrored in the modern passive ETF ecosystem?

📉 Passive Index Investing: Too Big to Question?

Let’s be clear: the S&P 500 and other indices hold real companies. But the price at which these companies trade is no longer purely a function of their fundamentals. Instead, it’s increasingly driven by mechanical inflows from retirement accounts, robo-advisors, and autopilot model portfolios.

It’s easy to point fingers at obviously fraudulent schemes like Madoff’s. But when we hold up this framework to modern index investing, it starts to feel uncomfortably familiar.

1. Returns Rely on Continued New Inflows

Many index ETFs — especially market-cap-weighted ones — rely on a constant stream of inflows to keep prices rising. As more investors pile into passive vehicles, they push up prices of underlying stocks (especially mega-caps), creating returns that are increasingly flow-driven rather than fundamentally earned.

➡️ Without new flows, the upward momentum in index-heavy names stalls or reverses.

2. No True Economic Engine or Value Creation

ETFs don’t allocate based on innovation, earnings, or capital efficiency. Capital is allocated mechanically, based on index inclusion and size — not economic contribution or value generation.

➡️ Companies receive capital simply for being in the index, not for creating new value.

3. Assets Are Opaque or Misunderstood

Most investors treat passive ETFs as low-risk and diversified, without realizing:

✅ They’re concentrated in a few stocks (e.g., top 10 make up over 30% of the S&P 500)

✅ Valuations may be extreme (P/E ratios of key constituents are historically high)

✅ Risk isn't managed — it's assumed.

➡️ The simplicity of ETFs hides structural risks and the illusion of safety.

4. Early Participants Benefit More Than Later Ones

Investors who bought into passive ETFs a decade ago benefited from low valuations, broad diversification, and a true value arbitrage. Today’s entrants are buying at inflated prices, taking on valuation and concentration risk without better returns.

➡️ The best days of passive investing were early — today’s investors may be entering at the peak.

5. Momentum Builds Through Narrative, Not Merit

Index investing is now a self-reinforcing narrative that has captivated investors ability to think:

🔗 “Passive always wins”

🔗 “You can’t beat the market”

🔗 “Fees are all that matter”

➡️ These mantras crowd out critical thinking about valuations, risks, or strategy appropriateness. It’s a belief system as much as an investment strategy.

6. Collapse Occurs When Flows Dry Up

Should investor flows slow or reverse, passive funds must sell without discretion, creating downward pressure on the same stocks they inflated on the way up. Liquidity risk, price impact, and correlation spikes become real threats.

➡️ The selloff can be indiscriminate — just as the buying was.

This is not the free market rewarding the best businesses. It’s algorithmic momentum detached from business merit.

💣 Déjà Vu: Mortgage-Backed Securities, 2008

Before the 2008 crash, mortgage-backed securities were seen as “safe and rock-solid”. They were broadly diversified, rated highly, and considered safe. Most investors believed they were backed by solid loans. But underneath, a large portion were low-quality subprime assets, masked by structure. Investors kept buying — not based on deep understanding, but because everyone else was doing it, and the system was engineered to support continued inflows. Eventually, the illusion broke. Liquidity dried up. Confidence collapsed.

Today’s index ETF obsession shows disturbing parallels:

🟠 Blind allocation to underlying assets regardless of merit.

🟠 Systemic risk concentration in a handful of mega-cap names.

🟠 A fragile dependency on continuous flows.

🏛 Passive Indexing: The Rise of Financial Socialism

Here’s a radical but honest take: Index investing today resembles socialism more than capitalism.

In capitalism, the best companies attract capital to reward productive, innovative, and value-creating businesses.

In socialism, every entity gets equal treatment. Capital allocation is democratic, not meritocratic.

No reward for efficiency, risk management, or leadership — just membership in the index club.

Index ETFs are governed by rules, not discretion. That means:

Passive investing doesn’t care about merit — it cares about membership.

As long as a company is in the index:

Ø It receives capital flows, no matter its debt, profitability, or governance.

Ø It's bought without question or scrutiny.

Ø Its performance is de-linked from fundamentals.

Meanwhile, active investors who conduct research, allocate capital based on quality and risk, and seek true value are being outpaced by mechanical flows. The result?

o Strong and weak companies receive the same treatment.

o Stock prices are propped up based on size, not contribution.

o Mediocrity and bloat are subsidized.

That’s financial socialism: equal treatment, regardless of economic output.

💸 And It’s Starving Small Business of Capital

One of the most damaging consequences of this passive mania is the capital starvation of smaller companies.

Here’s how:

If a company isn’t in the S&P 500 or a major index, it doesn’t receive investment flows.

➡️ Early-stage companies and small caps are increasingly starved of capital— even if they’re fundamentally stronger or more innovative.

➡️ Capital funnels to large incumbents, creating crowding and reinforcing market concentration and limiting competitive dynamism.

➡️ The passive structure erodes the discovery mechanism — the ability for markets to find and fund true growth stories, and the economic engine slows.

This distortion hurts not just investors, but the economy. It suppresses innovation, limits job creation, and delays the emergence of the next generation of market leaders. In a healthy market, merit should drive capital. Instead, index inclusion is becoming the biggest moat

🔁 The Illusion of Safety — Until It’s Not

Passive investing feels safe. But let’s be honest — it’s just complexity disguised as simplicity. The fragility is hiding in plain sight.

Most index ETF investors believe they’re being conservative. But in reality:

Ø They’re concentrated in a few tech names (Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon).

Ø They’re price-insensitive buyers, meaning they overpay during bubbles.

Ø They’re dependent on flows, not fundamentals, to drive returns.

And when the cycle turns — and it will — the losses won’t be cushioned by fundamentals. They’ll be compounded by panic-driven outflows and broken structures.

💡 The Solution: Risk-Aware, Actively Managed Strategies

It’s time for investors to think critically. You wouldn’t blindly lend to a business just because everyone else did. So why invest that way?

We believe in:

✅Risk aware, actively managed investing

✅Forward-looking factor strategies driven by fundamentals

✅Valuation and quality filters

✅Adaptable to market cycles with real downside protection

We believe investors deserve better than blind index exposure. Our strategies are built to survive through uncertainty — not just coast in bull markets. We don’t chase trends. We manage portfolios like a business — allocating capital to where it's most justified, not just mechanically available.

🚀 Time to Break Free from the Herd

Index investing won’t implode overnight. But the structural risks are building — and most investors are completely unaware of the cracks.

What has worked for last 30 years will not necessarily continue to work forward, especially given the backdrop. The fallout will be brutal for those still on autopilot.

It’s time to wake up.

👉 Passive investing helped democratize access, but it’s now becoming a systemic risk

👉 Real investing is selective, adaptive, and disciplined

👉 And the next decade will reward those who think actively, not passively

Thames Bridge is leading the charge for smart, risk-aware investing — a return to capitalism over indexing socialism.

If you're looking for forward-thinking, risk-managed strategies designed for a post-index world, it’s time to get in touch.

We’re not here to follow the herd. We’re here to lead it.