261–270 of 279 posts
I'll be contrarian. The general wisdom is hold the fund with the lowest fee structure. However, if the fee structure is 0.07%, that's $70/year / 100k invested. Even if it's 0.44%, you're talking about $440. The fees on most funds are small enough now to not matter much. It's worth shopping for lower-fee funds, but the more you go below 0.5%, the less it matters. If I save $500 per year for 50 years, that's $25k+inter…
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Define "make it good", cause the way I see it today, it is extremely good. But then again, I understand the UX and I don't find it difficult at all. I actually wonder if you've tried it... it really is just put in an address, amount (of any size), and click send. Want to earn interest or borrow funds? Load up Morpho.org, deposit into a vault of your liking and borrow whatever you want. No need to ask anyone for permi…
I'll know it when I see it. One necessary, but insufficient condition is this. I should be able to have an account (I think they're called wallets) where no one else can just run away with the contents, and I can't permanently lose access. I guess a bank could just steal money from my account, but I believe they won't, and furthermore that there will be something left for me to take legal action against if they try.…
Lots of wallet options now and they've gotten pretty advanced. Coinbase Wallet [0] is fully self custody and has anti-phishing, security and backup features built into it. You don't need to host anything. Backed by a public company that's been in business for a decade.
Start small. A few hundred $'s worth of crypto, something you're not afraid to lose. Then, no need to worry. It isn't like anyone starts riding a bike at 100mph.
Banks do fail, sure you can get FDIC, but as we saw with the fairly recent SVB debacle, it can have a real impact until it kicks in. I wouldn't count on being able to sue someone, when they've taken all your funds and you're just trying to figure out how to live.
Much like everything in life, all of this is really just a matter of having an interest or need to try new things out. That's what blows my mind about HN negativity. We are supposed to be curious technology people, but instead it is full of downvotes and an instant negative reaction. Never about, "I tried it and I found out that I didn't like it for XYZ reason."
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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 r…
Vanguard recently made two horrible mistakes: 1. a typical "Grand UI Redesign" that made the site worse and removed a bunch of previously working features, and 2. They made all their users "migrate" their accounts from one type to another, a process that I found to be error prone and clunky. For 1, all of us software people have seen companies do this over and over, and it always sucks. For 2, why they couldn't do wh…
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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…
I'm wondering if I'm on some very different account/plan than everyone else. Any time I've ever called Vanguard, I've gotten a super well trained rep without much of a wait or a call tree. I also had good interactions with Fidelity when I used them. Were you on a plan run through an employer? Or individual?
The breakpoints are $50k, $500k, $1M, $5M.
Let'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
Feels 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?
If the basic hypothesis is that “don’t bet against the U.S.” and that the U.S. long term, always go up, and I’m assuming most of us buy in to this hypothesis because most of us are probably holding an index fund for the S&P or QQQQ long term..
Looking at my portfolio, I just weathered the 2022-2023 storm without even looking. It could have been down 50%, it could have been 90%, I wasn’t selling. I’m all in for another 20 years.
Given that stance, why wouldn’t I just buy and hold a leveraged asset like TQQQ?
I wish there can be more focus on the voting rights for passive funds. Investors are concentrating voting power with these fund managers, just giving away their voting rights for free. I'd like to see better investor voting management systems become more available for "pass through" voting for passive fund investors. [1] https://vanderwalt.de/blog/etf-vs-direct-indexing-investing-...
It isn't possible to have an informed vote for the 500 companies in a S&P index fund and still have a life. I probably have an informed opinion on the company I work for - but I don't have enough shares to matter. The other 499 I know nothing about.
I wish there can be more focus on the voting rights for passive funds. Investors are concentrating voting power with these fund managers, just giving away their voting rights for free. I'd like to see better investor voting management systems become more available for "pass through" voting for passive fund investors. [1] https://vanderwalt.de/blog/etf-vs-direct-indexing-investing-...
Having voting rights kind of goes against the point of tracking an index though. Better invest in ESG funds or something like that. And for funds that use synthetic replication there is nothing to vote on in the first place.
Not sure I follow how voting rights goes against the point of tracking an index? I'd say the value of the index implicitly prices in the value of the voting rights in the constituents. So if your index does not contain the voting rights, should the index price not be different?
> And for funds that use synthetic replication there is nothing to vote on in the first place.
There are all kinds of funds, of course when it's 100% synthetic then so be it. But if it holds a representitive sample of Russell 3000, then those votes count.
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I'm wondering if I'm on some very different account/plan than everyone else. Any time I've ever called Vanguard, I've gotten a super well trained rep without much of a wait or a call tree. I also had good interactions with Fidelity when I used them. Were you on a plan run through an employer? Or individual?
It might be related to how much money you have invested. They publish a list of levels that provide different levels of service. https://investor.vanguard.com/client-benefits The breakpoints are $50k, $500k, $1M, $5M.
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…