Northern Funds

Northern Funds are no-load mutual funds managed by the the Northern Trust Company. As an asset manager, Northern Trust also manages Collective Investment Trusts (CITs) which are primarily used in corporate pension funds, such as 401-K plans. The company offers many additional services to very wealthy families, including trust services, philanthropic services and family office services

Boglehead-style investing at Northern
The building blocks of Boglehead-style investing are low-expense-ratio index mutual funds and/or ETFs. Vanguard fans would suggest that Vanguard has the best and most complete lineup of such funds, and that the most convenient place to hold Vanguard mutual funds is directly at Vanguard. Thus, the Bogleheads forum and Wiki tends to be Vanguard-oriented. But investing according to the Boglehead philosophy certainly does not require you to invest at Vanguard or use Vanguard products. Here are some notes on how to do it at Northern.

Index funds
Northern funds offers both active and passive mutual funds. The table below lists the index funds available to retail investors. (Northern Trust manages $322.6 billion in indexed investments). Currently, (through July 2012) Northern is waiving expenses on its indexed portfolios. The table provides both the gross expense ratio and the net expense ratio after fee waivers.

Exchange traded funds
Northern Trust manages the following Flexshare exchange traded funds.