WSJ: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat [Fidelity charging some plans to hold Vanguard funds]

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pcsrini
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WSJ: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat [Fidelity charging some plans to hold Vanguard funds]

Post by pcsrini »

Link, and there may be a paywall:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-stree ... 1517157915
"Fidelity makes it more expensive for some clients to invest in Vanguard funds, while others cut off access altogether"


Gist of the article is that Vanguard does not pay brokerages servicing cost fees, and Fidelity and other are adding fees for vanguard funds to discourage buying these funds.
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Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by BeachPerson »

[Thread merged into here, see below. --admin LadyGeek]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-stree ... o Vanguard

You need a subscription to the WSJ to read this. I will read it tomorrow since a co-worker brings in the WSJ each day.

I doubt what other firms are doing will make any dent in Vanguard's inflows.Vanguard has Jack as a great PR person.

Tim Buckey really jumped into the role and will be more active with using the press for the benefit of Vanguard.
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Re: WSJ: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by JamesSFO »

Thanks for the link
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Re: WSJ: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by SlowMovingInvestor »

pcsrini wrote: Sun Jan 28, 2018 12:38 pm Link, and there may be a paywall:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-stree ... 1517157915
"Fidelity makes it more expensive for some clients to invest in Vanguard funds, while others cut off access altogether"


Gist of the article is that Vanguard does not pay brokerages servicing cost fees, and Fidelity and other are adding fees for vanguard funds to discourage buying these funds.
I can't read the article because of the paywall, but are you saying that these firms are imposing fees merely to hold the funds ? Almost all already have fees to buy and sell the funds, and some (like Fido) don't allow Admiral Funds to even be held.

Or is it only for access to Institutional Vanguard Funds in 401k plans managed by Fidelity ?

[ Note that Fido, TDAM etc. are hardly 'Wall Street' except by a very broad definition, so the title of the article is somewhat inappropriate]
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Re: WSJ: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by Bwlonge »

Considering Fidelity has parallel funds, I just buy their's.
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Re: WSJ: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by Peculiar_Investor »

From the article
WSJ wrote:Fidelity, the largest 401(k) plan administrator in the country, will now charge new corporate customers that hire the firm to run their 401(k) plans a fee of 0.05% on assets invested in Vanguard funds. That new fee covers administrative services that Fidelity provides as a 401(k) record-keeper, a spokeswoman for the Boston firm said.

“A small number of fund families have not compensated Fidelity for certain services, and this pricing change is designed to address that disparity with the intention of providing fairness across all of our business relationships,” she added. “This is about leveling the playing field.”

Fidelity explicitly requires employers to pay the fee, rather than passing it off to plan participants, a person familiar with the matter said.
There is lots more to the article, you might be able to Google the title to bypass the WSJ paywall.

It also states the recent move by Fidelity’s retirement business, which was first reported Fidelity pushes Vanguard to compete on brand in 401(k) plans | InvestmentNews, so that might be another avenue to read about this subject.
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Re: WSJ: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by saltycaper »

pcsrini wrote: Sun Jan 28, 2018 12:38 pm Link, and there may be a paywall:
That's probably a good thing in this case.
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Re: WSJ: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by Gropes & Ray »

Fido is charging employers .05% to include vanguard funds in their 401k offerings. I anticipate employers would rather offer more expensive funds where their employees pay the burden, so it's bad for 401k participants.

Should also point out that Fido index funds are fine too. So participants may be fine.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by ulrichw »

Your link didn't work for me - here's one that did: https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-stree ... 1517157915
(I'm an online WSJ subscriber)

Key points:
"Fidelity, the largest 401(k) plan administrator in the country, will now charge new corporate customers that hire the firm to run their 401(k) plans a fee of 0.05% on assets invested in Vanguard funds.", though
"Fidelity explicitly requires employers to pay the fee, rather than passing it off to plan participants, a person familiar with the matter said. Companies and plan participants typically share 401(k) plan administration costs, however, which means savers could bear some or all of the new cost if an employer sought to recoup the new expense in a less explicit way, retirement industry executives say."
More context:
"Executives from the two firms have been in talks for years over Vanguard’s refusal to pay the servicing costs."

So basically Vanguard is no helping the point-of-sale brokers by paying them for their service of bringing individuals to the fund. There's a tacit implication here that most other fund companies do this - and in a way it's not unreasonable, as it will in theory reduce the amount 401(k) administrators charge.

Other companies taking action "against" Vanguard:
"TD Ameritrade late last year overhauled its commission-free ETF trading lineup, dropping all 32 Vanguard products it had previously included. That overhaul increased the total number of ETFs that could be traded commission-free."

TD Ameritrade's action won't harm Bogleheads much as we probably aren't executing enough trades to care about commissions.

"Morgan Stanley last year decided to ban its financial advisers from selling clients new positions in Vanguard mutual funds, the Journal reported. Merrill Lynch has long had such a policy for its advisers."

Another nail in the coffin for financial advisers.

Not all actions have "stuck": "Morgan Stanley, for example, considered changing the compensation calculation for its financial advisers to discourage them from keeping clients in Vanguard funds, but ultimately decided against it, according to people familiar with the matter. The change mooted would have excluded client assets in mutual funds that don’t pay for distribution when calculating financial-adviser compensation."

This'll feed this forum's preconceptions about financial advising as a field. Nice that they decided against it, but how the heck could they even consider this?
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Re: WSJ: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by drk »

SlowMovingInvestor wrote: Sun Jan 28, 2018 12:49 pm [ Note that Fido, TDAM etc. are hardly 'Wall Street' except by a very broad definition, so the title of the article is somewhat inappropriate]
Last year, Morgan Stanley dropped Vanguard mutual funds altogether (link), and I've seen several posts from Chase customers who are no longer able to buy Admiral shares because of some mysterious new-but-unnamed regulation.

Edit: Silly me. This is actually cited in the article.
Morgan Stanley last year decided to ban its financial advisers from selling clients new positions in Vanguard mutual funds, the Journal reported. Merrill Lynch has long had such a policy for its advisers.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by LadyGeek »

I merged davidkw's thread into here, which is in the Investing - Theory, News & General forum (general news).

For those looking to read the article without a subscription, it's available via Facebook. Here's a shortcut: Re: The Wall Street Journal to close Google loophole entirely

Update: It's the technique described by Pajamas 2 posts down from here.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by Paul Romano »

As a long time Vanguard investor and supporter I can understand Fidelitys point of view.

If you owned a grocery store would you stock and sell a vendors products if you could not earn a profit on them.

Fidelity is asking to be compensated for selling Vanguards products.

According to the article there is $180 billion dollars of Vanguard products on their 401k platform.

This is certainly an advantage to Vanguard in that they do not have to provide any customer support for all of these assets.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by BeachPerson »

More financial advisers are going "fee only", so they can offer Vanguard funds.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by Jim Beaux »

Here ya go
Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat
http://www.cetusnews.com/business/Wall- ... GFoHf.html
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by drk »

Paul Romano wrote: Sun Jan 28, 2018 2:05 pm As a long time Vanguard investor and supporter I can understand Fidelitys point of view.

If you owned a grocery store would you stock and sell a vendors products if you could not earn a profit on them.

Fidelity is asking to be compensated for selling Vanguards products.

According to the article there is $180 billion dollars of Vanguard products on their 401k platform.

This is certainly an advantage to Vanguard in that they do not have to provide any customer support for all of these assets.
I don't think anyone needs to shed a tear for Fidelity here. Fidelity is being paid to administer 401(k) plans. It wants to juice that income by charging more fees. This is a logical next step if its loss leader funds have not ginned up sufficient interest.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by swguy »

Its ironic that most of the posts in this thread about Fido working to monetize sales of Vanguard funds are about posters trying to circumvent the WSJ monetizing the article. :)
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by BolderBoy »

I'll take some blame for Fidelity doing this with Vanguard Funds.

The hospital system in which I used to work (not as an employee) has their retirement plan run through Fidelity. Over the last 3 years I've been showing any of the employees who asked (after I gave two presentations) why they should ditch the default funds into which they were placed by Fidelity, and switch to 2-3 Vanguard total market funds that were also available (but somewhat 'hidden').

The default Fidelity funds have 0.66% ERs and the Vanguard funds have 0.06% ERs.

A lot of the employees switched.

Can't blame Fidelity for trying to salvage some revenue.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by arcticpineapplecorp. »

These are the some of the most important parts:
One reason Vanguard has been able to offer such low fees for so long is the structure of its business: It is owned by its fund shareholders. The Malvern, Pa., money-management giant also allows investors to buy mutual funds directly from it unlike many of its rivals and trade its exchange-traded funds commission-free.
“It’s definitely unusual; we haven’t seen any other charge like this,” said Emily Wrightson, director at Cammack Retirement Group, Inc., adding that it could deter companies considering whether or not to hire Fidelity if their employees prefer Vanguard funds. “I don’t think it’s going to help” Fidelity win new business, she said.
Fidelity isn’t alone in targeting Vanguard. Other brokerage platforms have also taken steps that make the index giant’s products less appealing than comparably priced funds sold by rivals. TD Ameritrade late last year overhauled its commission-free ETF trading lineup, dropping all 32 Vanguard products it had previously included. That overhaul increased the total number of ETFs that could be traded commission-free.

Morgan Stanley last year decided to ban its financial advisers from selling clients new positions in Vanguard mutual funds, the Journal reported. Merrill Lynch has long had such a policy for its advisers.
Moves to deter the use of Vanguard funds have at times stalled.

Morgan Stanley, for example, considered changing the compensation calculation for its financial advisers to discourage them from keeping clients in Vanguard funds, but ultimately decided against it, according to people familiar with the matter. The change mooted would have excluded client assets in mutual funds that don’t pay for distribution when calculating financial-adviser compensation.
Another example of not doing right by customers but trying to service the company's bottom line. "No man can serve to masters". Who do you think Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch is serving by making this move? Certainly not its customers.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by stan1 »

I understand why Fidelity is doing this. Why would Fidelity sell a Vanguard product at cost when others give them a small mark up? Why would an employer pay extra to access Vanguard funds when there are similar funds from Fidelity, Blackrock, and American albeit possibly with higher expense ratios? Vanguard is trying to grow their 401K administration business by making it more expensive for other administrators to offer their funds. Seems odd to blame Fidelity for that.

As a Vanguard investor I'm happy Vanguard passes savings on to me through lower expense ratios (although I wish they'd spend more on reliable and accurate IT systems).

The people most impacted by this will be 401K participants who end up with higher expense ratio alternatives to Vanguard funds while being locked into the plan administrator chosen by their employer. Very very few people would take or quit a job over the presence of Vanguard funds in a 401K.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by mortfree »

I get charged $75 each time when I buy Vanguard’s Wellesley and Vanguard Health Care funds in my Fidelity 401k brokerage account.

I think I’ve bought Wellesley twice and health care once.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by SlowMovingInvestor »

My recollection is that Fido's Institutional index funds are actually marginally cheaper than Vanguards (like .005 %).

Given that, I can understand why they would prefer that 401k plans use their index funds rather than Vanguards'.

For Individual Investors, one good thing is that Fidelity doesn't charge for selling a fund (even a TF fund).
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by Alexa9 »

If you can't beat them, tax them!
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Wall Street to Vanguard - "were not your doormat anymore"

Post by CardHound »

[Thread merged into here, see below. --admin LadyGeek]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-stree ... 1517157915

Just came across this. It certainly doesn't seem very fiduciary to charge your customers more because your funds can't compete. I did notice though in my own 401k that Vanguard's institutional shares charge even less than their Admiral shares.

Does this push more people to Vanguard or to others funds?
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard - "were not your doormat anymore"

Post by stan1 »

Warning: I am about 80% satisficer (accepting of good enough) and 20% maximizer
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by jumppilot »

This development doesn't bother me much. Expense ratios have become so low that we, main street investors, have won the game.

We have entered new territory where we've gone so low on the ER arms race that perhaps a bit of correction is needed. Anything below 15 bps is a steal in my opinion - I can have $1 million invested in a broad market index fund and pay $1500 a year for the privilege. I couldn't create that portfolio on my own for less cost.

Not a bad trade off in my opinion.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by darrvao777 »

Read the article today and I'm glad I use Vanguard as my brokerage firm
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by LadyGeek »

I merged CardHound's post and stan1's reply into here.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by TIAX »

Interesting that so many of Vanguard's competitors took actions against it at one time. I hope they didn't discuss it beforehand.
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Wall Street cuts off access to Vanguard

Post by VennData »

[merged into existing topic - moderator prudent]

Cut off access altogether
​​​https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-stre ... 17157915​​
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Re: Wall Street cuts off access to Vanguard

Post by livesoft »

Yawn. JPMorgan Chase is not going out of their way to let people invest in Fidelity nor Schwab funds.

And Fidelity is not offering up JPMorgan Chase, nor Oppenheimer, nor DFA although of course one can probably get those funds at Fidelity for a fee.

Those fund "supermarkets" with 5000 NTF funds in the them were just a joke anyways.

WallStreet has always been Balkanized.

And this thread is duplicate of threads already started on the subject.
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vanguard attacked by other firms

Post by sometimesinvestor »

[merged into existing topic - moderator prudent]

there will be an impact on vanguard funds/etfs held with other firms

https://www.wsj.com/articles/wall-stree ... 1517157915
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Re: Wall Street cuts off access to Vanguard

Post by wisevermilion »

Fidelity, the largest 401(k) plan administrator in the country, will now charge some new corporate customers that hire the firm to run their 401(k) plans a fee of 0.05% on assets invested in Vanguard funds. That new fee covers administrative services that Fidelity provides as a 401(k) record-keeper, a spokeswoman for the Boston firm said. Fidelity explicitly requires employers to pay the fee, rather than passing it off to plan participants, a person familiar with the matter said.

TD Ameritrade late last year overhauled its commission-free ETF trading lineup, dropping all 32 Vanguard products it had previously included. That overhaul increased the total number of ETFs that could be traded commission-free.

Morgan Stanley last year decided to ban its financial advisers from selling clients new positions in Vanguard mutual funds, the Journal reported. Merrill Lynch has long had such a policy for its advisers.
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Re: Wall Street cuts off access to Vanguard

Post by mariezzz »

wisevermilion wrote: Mon Jan 29, 2018 8:27 am
Fidelity, the largest 401(k) plan administrator in the country, will now charge some new corporate customers that hire the firm to run their 401(k) plans a fee of 0.05% on assets invested in Vanguard funds. That new fee covers administrative services that Fidelity provides as a 401(k) record-keeper, a spokeswoman for the Boston firm said. Fidelity explicitly requires employers to pay the fee, rather than passing it off to plan participants, a person familiar with the matter said.
Even with the fee of .05% on assets invested in Vanguard funds, the Vanguard funds will be cheaper than the majority of options people have in 401ks.
Perhaps justified to cover Fidelity's expenses?? Could be a very minor deterrent to companies from offering Vanguard products.

How can Fidelity explicitly require employers to pay the fee for Vanguard products, if it doesn't do the same for other products? Does this create legal questions?
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Re: Wall Street cuts off access to Vanguard

Post by simplesimon »

mariezzz wrote: Mon Jan 29, 2018 9:33 am How can Fidelity explicitly require employers to pay the fee for Vanguard products, if it doesn't do the same for other products? Does this create legal questions?
I don't think there's a law in place that stops them from doing so. Employers/companies are not the same as consumers when it comes to protection.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by triceratop »

I don't see the issue, or why people are saying this is yet another non-Vanguard company screwing over investors. Fund companies (or even any company, sans Uber), even Vanguard, don't normally offer products which cost them money. This article seems like a big yawn.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by longleaf »

Frugality, indexing, time.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by Engineer250 »

Have a Vanguard 401k with awful funds chosen by my employer/some stupid third party FA. I pay $50 a year to invest outside the plan which lets me access Vanguard funds. Currently I think that’s about 0.6% of my 401k with VG. Obviously it will get less over time, but paying to access more affordable funds might be worth it.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by Christine_NM »

See this thread for making a bookmarklet to read WSJ thru Facebook: viewtopic.php?t=210764 -- without actually being on Facebook.

A few posts down triceratop tells you how to do it. Works for this article.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by Pajamas »

Can't say I much blame Fidelity for being concerned about the issue. However, the issue of hidden or indirect fees is also a problem. I generally prefer transparency and simplicity over obfuscation and complexity.

It's not a perfect comparison, but I see it as very similar to food companies paying grocery stores slotting fees for shelf space. Vanguard has refused to pay such fees so Fidelity has responded by charging them to customers instead. In a grocery store, those fees are not transparent. In the Fidelity/Vanguard fund situation, these new fees are transparent, so they are attracting criticism even though they are preferable to equal but hidden fees.

I prefer the model that BJ's, Costco, Trader Joe's, Walmart, Whole Foods, and perhaps other grocery stores such as Aldi and Lidl use. They don't charge or accept slotting fees but instead focus on wholesale prices and that seems to generally result in lower prices for the customer compared to stores that charge slotting fees. It may even just boil down to the administrative costs for the more complex system using slotting fees accounting for much of the difference or it may be part of an overall focus and way of doing business.

All mutual funds should eliminate the kickback fees to custodians and custodians should instead charge a fee to customers to cover their administrative costs. I won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.

Another issue that this raises is that many custodians see the mutual fund companies as their real customers and the individual investors who buy the funds are just a product that they sell to the mutual fund companies.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by nisiprius »

Yay Wall Street! Go Wall Street! You tell 'em. You just stand up to those Vanguard bullies and tell 'em what for. Finally, someone is on the side of the little guy. We shall at last be protected against cheap, cheesy, promiscuous index funds that will buy any stock that breathes. We shall enjoy the blessings of quality mutual funds with portfolios that are professionally curated by high-quality people of exquisitely discriminating taste. We shall at last get both the growth and the value we deserve. Finally, Vanguard's heavy yoke of oppression shall be lifted from our shoulders. We shall at last be liberated, free of the crushing burden, free from the Dark Lord of Malvern. Free at last, free at last, great God Almighty, we are free at last! Let's give two cheers: Rah. Rah.

I'm being ironic. Could you tell?
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by invst65 »

I wanted to buy a Vanguard fund in my Fidelity Roth IRA but the cost was $75 for the transaction.

There was an easy solution to that problem. I transferred the whole fund to Vanguard.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by Taylor Larimore »

I'm being ironic. Could you tell?
Nisiprius:

Great post. I thought you were serious. :wink:

Best wishes.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by greg24 »

jumppilot wrote: Sun Jan 28, 2018 8:52 pmExpense ratios have become so low that we, main street investors, have won the game.
Completely agree. The race to lower expense ratios have gotten so low, that a 5bp fee is being imposed, and discussed and dissected.

Considering a world where a whole lot of people are paying 1.5%+, Vanguard forcing companies to focus on the minutia shows just how far we have come.

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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by jaj2276 »

In my 401k plan, I'm charged 25 bps (instead of Fido's 5bps) for investing in Vanguard funds. It sucks but it still ends up being cheaper than the other funds they offer.
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by VennData »

Paul Romano wrote: Sun Jan 28, 2018 2:05 pm As a long time Vanguard investor and supporter I can understand Fidelitys point of view... This is certainly an advantage to Vanguard in that they do not have to provide any customer support for all of these assets.
Vanguard's customer support is excellent
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by VennData »

nisiprius wrote: Mon Jan 29, 2018 12:01 pm Yay Wall Street! Go Wall Street!
I almost hit the :!: button thinking Nusiprius's account had been compromised. <jk>
VennData
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by VennData »

It's great how so few Bogleheads subscribe to the WSJ :sharebeer
BeachPerson
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by BeachPerson »

Using peashooters

Rivals Fire Peashooters at Vanguard Juggernaut


Nice read by Barrons
Last edited by BeachPerson on Mon Jan 29, 2018 3:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.
From Jack Brennan's "Straight Talk on Investing", page 23 "Living below your means is the ultimate financial strategy"
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nisiprius
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Re: Wall Street to Vanguard: We’re Not Your Doormat

Post by nisiprius »

Corrected link: Rivals Fire Peashooters at Vanguard's Juggernaut

Code: Select all

You needed this "url=" syntax:
[url=https://www.barrons.com/articles/rivals-fire-peashooters-at-vanguard-juggernaut-1517240312]Using peashooters[/url]
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness; Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
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Re: Wall Street cuts off access to Vanguard

Post by MrPotatoHead »

livesoft wrote: Mon Jan 29, 2018 8:23 am Yawn. JPMorgan Chase is not going out of their way to let people invest in Fidelity nor Schwab funds.

And Fidelity is not offering up JPMorgan Chase, nor Oppenheimer, nor DFA although of course one can probably get those funds at Fidelity for a fee.

Those fund "supermarkets" with 5000 NTF funds in the them were just a joke anyways.

WallStreet has always been Balkanized.
FYI I can get DFA funds in my Fido 401K plan with no additional fees, though I have no idea why I would want them or any of the plethora of other funds I can obtain. IMO, you pay a dear price to participate in some academic theories that none less than the great Jack Bogle indicates he thinks is a mirage.

I don't mind paying a premium of .37% for my Stable Value fund as I can't get that outside the plan. But the rest of my investments are in the .02-.04% ER range.

There are a number of DFA funds (11, I think) and they range from .32 up to .69% ERs with the majority closer to the latter than the former.

I did a rough calculation on the equity portion of my portfolio, they would run me roughly $5,520 a year vs the $240 a year in expense ratios I am running now.
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