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Vanguard Is Growing Faster Than Everybody Else Combined

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141–150 of 358 posts

Re: Vanguard Is Growing Faster Than Everybody Else Combined

#141

As a Vanguard customer, I can understand why people are so enthusiastic about their products, and have known for a while that passive investment, and Vanguard in particular, was growing while active management was on the decline. At no point did I think the difference in inflows was anywhere close to 8.5x. And it does worry me. I'm familiar with the contention that even having some active players in the market will a…

ETFs can be arbitraged much more efficiently due to creation/redemption features. There are market markers like Jane Street who do a ton of this.

The more risky effect is that all stocks in an index become more correlated with it over time, leading to larger jumps in single names around earnings seasons when real information is released to the public.

Re: Vanguard Is Growing Faster Than Everybody Else Combined

#142
post #36
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robinhood??

It's relatively new. They have no site, trading and research tools, investing plans etc. Most of the big brokers offer commission free trades on ETF's and mutual funds.

If you are just looking to allocate to some ETFs by Vanguard, there's really no argument left that you need any of these tools. All you are going to do is by SPY or some other ETF and sit on it. Robinhood is very easy for that.

Re: Vanguard Is Growing Faster Than Everybody Else Combined

#143
post #129
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really debatable. After 10~15 years of investment in Betterment or Wealthfront, in all likelihood all of your investments will be in the black, and there will be no opportunities for loss harvesting. But you're still stuck paying the 25 basis points per year unless you sell (and thus incur the capital gains, anyways).

False - this is not how tax loss harvesting works. Even if you are in the black every year, you can still benefit from it.

That is exactly how tax loss harvesting works. Here's a quote from Betterment:

"What is Tax Loss Harvesting? Tax loss harvesting is the practice of selling a security that has experienced a loss."

https://www.betterment.com/tax-loss-harvesting/

Re: Vanguard Is Growing Faster Than Everybody Else Combined

#144
post #22

Vanguard seems to have gone a bit too far with cost-cutting in the customer services department. One of my most frustrating recent experiences was dealing with Vanguard's website and customer service. There were all kinds of issues, some minor annoyances, others serious time sinks. Here's an excerpt from a long and boring story: ... One day, I couldn't log in to their website. Attempting to go through "forgot my pass…

I don't understand how companies like that can thrive (but many do). If I have to pick up the phone to solve a problem even once, I'm angry. If I have to call them twice, I'm looking at alternatives. I may decide not to switch if the alternatives are even worse...but, I'm looking to get out of the shitty relationship I find myself in with that company. (This frustration is fresh in my mind because Security Metrics ju…

You should not get angry over such small things. Not good for your health, or for any other purpose.

Re: Vanguard Is Growing Faster Than Everybody Else Combined

#145
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know about ETF? Most of the Vanguard mutual funds have an ETF version.

I'm afraid I'm not very up to speed, all I know is that I want index funds, basically. I have heard of ETFs, but not in any great detail.

Basically any brokerage account can buy the ETF like it's a stock (which is what it is).

So just log into your account, find the ticker, and buy it.

Re: Vanguard Is Growing Faster Than Everybody Else Combined

#146
post #104
post #100

The fact that Vanguard is growing faster than everybody else combined is interesting indeed. The article itself, however, reads like one big ad for Vanguard. The fact that the NYT is somewhat affiliated with them ("They number well over 20 million and include New York Times employees: Vanguard runs the company’s 401(k) retirement plans.") doesn't help either. What I miss is a critical examination of the situation. Th…

Its the plight of the newsreader, whereby you add nothing when writing about a subject, do no research on it, and avoid thinking critically about the news you've been told to publish or read to the viewers on TV. Newsreaders are not journalists, and being unable to form an opinion of their own, they are often willing to regurgitate anything their sources tell them without fail.

I don't know what world you're living in. The news is too full of opinion these days. If only I could find a source that JUST reported the facts I would give them all my money.

Re: Vanguard Is Growing Faster Than Everybody Else Combined

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vanguard exists in the UK: https://www.vanguard.co.uk/uk/portal/home.jsp

Ah, fantastic, I was just looking for that, thank you. It's odd how little a search turns up, "Vanguard Europe" wasn't very informative.

More than just the UK. See: https://global.vanguard.com/portal/site/home for a list of countries.

Re: Vanguard Is Growing Faster Than Everybody Else Combined

#148
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The fact that the NYT is somewhat affiliated with them So a disclosure that they use a massively popular product is now an advertisement? Just one time I'd like to open the comments and not have someone saying "fake news" or "this is just an ad" or "stick with the facts". Vanguard is an interesting company doing big things. They invented the index fund. They are massive. The New York Times profiles companies like th…

> So a disclosure is now an advertisement? No it isn't. I merely said that the article reads like an advert (not: it is an advert) and furthermore I said the affiliation would not help to shake this impression off. This is merely an aside and still doesn't imply it is an ad. My main problem with this article is that it is not critically examining what it is reporting about. Whether or not it actually is an ad is seco…

It's not meant to be a critical piece. Those exist too. Why can't an article give a short but interesting summary of how the market is changing?

Re: Vanguard Is Growing Faster Than Everybody Else Combined

#149

As a Vanguard customer, I can understand why people are so enthusiastic about their products, and have known for a while that passive investment, and Vanguard in particular, was growing while active management was on the decline. At no point did I think the difference in inflows was anywhere close to 8.5x. And it does worry me. I'm familiar with the contention that even having some active players in the market will a…

Yeah, the slow and steady rise of stock prices across the board is in large part just an effect of increased money supply. Sure, lifting along with that passively is cheap and reliable way to make money. But since these types of passive investments care little about how efficiently the beneficiaries make use of these investments, there's the danger that inefficient companies end up with too much capital.

If that happens, you end up with resources such as labor being wasted. The efficient usage of the available resources is of course a much better indicator for the quality of the economy than the rise of stock prices.

Re: Vanguard Is Growing Faster Than Everybody Else Combined

#150

As a Vanguard customer, I can understand why people are so enthusiastic about their products, and have known for a while that passive investment, and Vanguard in particular, was growing while active management was on the decline. At no point did I think the difference in inflows was anywhere close to 8.5x. And it does worry me. I'm familiar with the contention that even having some active players in the market will a…

I think you have identified that this is a self-correcting problem but are selling yourself short by thinking that the economy will be destabilized. If everyone goes towards passive investments, there will be huge opportunities in active investment because the passive investing is not correctly identifying value. These opportunities are likely to cause an outflow from passive into active if that is where the money is.
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