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Vanguard's average fee is now 0.07% after biggest-ever cut

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Re: Vanguard's average fee is now 0.07% after biggest-ever cut

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH, I trust vanguard more, even if their website is absolutely worse. There's a saying, 'if you're not the customer, you're the product'. I expect trades on those index funds are getting 'front run' much like robinhood is getting front run. You might have a lower ER but your nav might effectively be higher when buying and lower when selling. Of course, I'm a 'buy and hold' investor so this doesn't really effect me m…

Front running is illegal.

In finance, nothing is illegal if the profits outweigh the fines.

Citaldel paid handsomely for order-flow information from Robinhood. They made a lot of money off retail traders. They paid a fine IIRC equivalent to a few day's profits.

Re: Vanguard's average fee is now 0.07% after biggest-ever cut

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH, I trust vanguard more, even if their website is absolutely worse. There's a saying, 'if you're not the customer, you're the product'. I expect trades on those index funds are getting 'front run' much like robinhood is getting front run. You might have a lower ER but your nav might effectively be higher when buying and lower when selling. Of course, I'm a 'buy and hold' investor so this doesn't really effect me m…

How do you front run a mutual fund? The price is the price.

Predict or react to index changes faster than the funds that are compelled to follow the index.

But you can't front run shares of mutual funds; they always trade at close of business at NAV.

You could potentially front run ETFs, but if you're worried about that, you can use limit orders and get the price you want or not transact. As long as you use a competent broker that offers limit orders.

Re: Vanguard's average fee is now 0.07% after biggest-ever cut

#23
post #3

Not 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…

Fidelity's "Zero" funds are great, but only for specific scenarios IMO. They can't be held outside Fidelity accounts, so what happens if you get caught up in some KYC nonsense and Fidelity closes your account? Are you forced to liquidate and incur capital gains? There are also some embedded tax efficiencies inherent to ETFs, like 351 exchanges, which aren't popular now, but may become popular in the future. TBH, this mainly applies to taxable accounts. For nontaxable accounts, Zero funds don't have much downside.

Re: Vanguard's average fee is now 0.07% after biggest-ever cut

#24
post #3

Not 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…

I have accounts at both, and my perception is that Vanguard is pretty much exclusively low cost, but Fidelity does have some very competitive options if you can find them. They just also have a lot of overpriced junk.

Fidelity’s technology and customer service does generally seem better. Although they were completely baffled when their app refused to run on a rooted phone with an error message along the lines of “your account is frozen” after I logged in. (It wasn’t, and worked fine after I realized that was the issue and put it on the deny list.)

Overall, I trust Vanguard more, but both have their strong points.

Re: Vanguard's average fee is now 0.07% after biggest-ever cut

#25
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Front running is illegal.

Only if you get caught. And the fine needs to be higher than the profit.

It’s pretty easy to learn how fidelity and others make money on fee-free index funds. Perhaps something to look into before accusing them of committing a crime.

Re: Vanguard's average fee is now 0.07% after biggest-ever cut

#27
post #3

Not 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…

[deleted]

Re: Vanguard's average fee is now 0.07% after biggest-ever cut

#29
post #3

Not 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…

Isn't this about the funds, rather than using Vanguard as a broker? Can't you buy Vanguard funds while on Fidelity, or vice versa?

You can. There's usually a hefty transaction fee when purchasing a funds not managed by whichever service you're on ($49?).

Might be manageable if you're purchasing in enormous quantities; but a 5% fee on $1000 hurts if you're in normal consumer purchase ranges.

Re: Vanguard's average fee is now 0.07% after biggest-ever cut

#30
post #3

Not 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…

We tried using vanguard. The UX/UI was so bad we went through the work of transferring everything to fidelity. They've got a pretty decent app.

Vanguard has so much friction on what should be very simple and common tasks.

There's no excuse for that. I can say pretty confidently that cutting fees won't be enough. They need a total rewrite of all their customer facing software and web stuff, and they probably need to revamp their customers service as well. They screwed up my wife's name and she tried for months and months to fix it before giving up.

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