What does this mean for folks like me who buy Vanguard ETFs through Robinhood.
The Vanguard UI / UX is absolutely terrible. Opening the website instantly transports me to 2002.
Vanguard's average fee is now 0.07% after biggest-ever cut
181–190 of 279 posts
Re: Vanguard's average fee is now 0.07% after biggest-ever cut
#182Let's not forget that Vanguard has taken a strong stance against crypto [0]. Claiming to significantly invest in technology while deliberately ignoring the latest advancements in financial technology, seems contradictory. If their business was doing so well, they wouldn't have to lower fees. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42832026
This is for the same reason they don't mix gold ETFs into their indexes. The point of their funds is to track companies that produce goods and services, not asserts and commodities.
Re: Vanguard's average fee is now 0.07% after biggest-ever cut
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed, that is about the stated revenue on their Wikipedia page. Divided equally among their 20,000 employees, that comes to $350,000 per employee. Expenses like office space, taxes, fines/fees, inflated executive compensation, etc will bring that down quite a bit; though other sources of income will bring it back up too. Sounds reasonable.
I wonder what 20,000 Employees are doing there though. I know saying "I could do that with 10 people, what are they even doing" is a meme here, but I really can't make a good guess what the employees are actually doing. Risk assessment, looking for new investment opportunities, regulatory paperwork, marketing? 20,000 is a lot of people.
One way to get a hint at what kind of work employees do is by looking at open job postings: https://www.vanguardjobs.com/job-search-results
Re: Vanguard's average fee is now 0.07% after biggest-ever cut
#184Not mentioned in any of the coverage I've seen (or the interview with Vanguard's new CEO in the WSJ) is Fidelity. Fidelity used to be known for actively managed funds, but has been eating Vanguard's indexing lunch for the past 10 years or so. Part of this relates to its dominance in workplace accounts, but Vanguard hasn't helped itself with some bad customer-facing software updates and a perception that its service l…
Yeah, as a litmus test of how much they care about their customers try to call in and get something done.
Vanguard will throw you into an automated labyrinth with the only exit being a poorly-trained rep in india or pakistan that has no real understanding of what you're trying to do.
Their website is complete trash compared to the other big two. Often down, you can only check your balance, etc.
Fidelity will within a matter of a couple of minutes connect you with someone that seems too good to be true. Knowledgeable, friendly, going out of their way to help you, they follow up on what they say (like calling you back, etc).
Once I got a taste of how Fidelity treats people and their broader set of products I moved everything over.
Vanguard is circling the drain if you ask me.
Re: Vanguard's average fee is now 0.07% after biggest-ever cut
#185Feels so strange that the average investor can't outperform an index fund with low management fees. A small investor is so agile - they can move in and out of positions. Why that agility can't be utilized to outperform a slow moving index fund, long-term?
It should not come as a surprise. While it's a bit of a simplification, index funds are effectively a representation of the average surviving investor...that is among all investors, index funds are the average of those who have not yet gone broke. The investors who have gone broke get culled out.
So it should not at all be surprising that index funds perform better than the average investor.
Furthermore, as far as agility is concerned, it doesn't play much of a role in the market. Almost all gains in the stock market over the course of a year come from a handful of days. For example in 2024, just 9 days account for the entire yearly gains.
Re: Vanguard's average fee is now 0.07% after biggest-ever cut
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
The “tool” was sorting your lots by cost basis, which is what Enginerrrd is saying was taken away.
I would guess it's still there but buried in some UX hell hole
I did some rebalancing recently, and couldn't find it. You can sort by capital gain per lot, which isn't very helpful if your lots are vastly different sizes. Thankfully I don't have that many lots, and had plenty of capital loss carryover to offset the gains, so it doesn't matter that much, but it's annoying, and it's probably the straw that's going to get me to actually move to a better brokerage. (which I guess is fine for Vanguard, if I'm at a different brokerage, it reduces Vanguard's costs)
Re: Vanguard's average fee is now 0.07% after biggest-ever cut
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed, that is about the stated revenue on their Wikipedia page. Divided equally among their 20,000 employees, that comes to $350,000 per employee. Expenses like office space, taxes, fines/fees, inflated executive compensation, etc will bring that down quite a bit; though other sources of income will bring it back up too. Sounds reasonable.
I wonder what 20,000 Employees are doing there though. I know saying "I could do that with 10 people, what are they even doing" is a meme here, but I really can't make a good guess what the employees are actually doing. Risk assessment, looking for new investment opportunities, regulatory paperwork, marketing? 20,000 is a lot of people.
I imagine they have actual customer service. But maybe I'm naive?
Re: Vanguard's average fee is now 0.07% after biggest-ever cut
#188I'm a big fan of Vanguard, but if anyone is looking for competitively-priced funds from other issuers, check out
- iShares Core (Blackrock) https://www.ishares.com/us/strategies/core-etfs
- SPDR Portfolio (State Street) https://www.ssga.com/us/en/individual/fund-finder
- Schwab Select (includes in-house and third-party) https://www.schwab.com/research/etfs/tools/select-list
Re: Vanguard's average fee is now 0.07% after biggest-ever cut
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you know the index rules, it's fairly simple to calculate the turnover it is going to generate when it rebalances and subsequently the impact the rebalance is going to have on prices. This is a fairly well known behavior and a lot of players have been doing this for a long time. Basically every index of any significance is already being monitored and rebalancing effects are "front-run" this way. I put the word in…
This is not what "front running" means.
Yeah duh. I was explaining to the parent.
Re: Vanguard's average fee is now 0.07% after biggest-ever cut
#190What does this mean for folks like me who buy Vanguard ETFs through Robinhood. The Vanguard UI / UX is absolutely terrible. Opening the website instantly transports me to 2002.
I see several people complaining about this in this thread. Are you talking about their old interface or the new one they released a couple years ago? I find their new one to be decent. It's a little complicated sometimes, but I think it's hard to build a site that allows you to do so many things without being a little complicated.