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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

#91
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The zero fund I am familiar with (FZILX) has a once-a-year dividend schedule which I'm sure nets them a lot of money, vs paying out more frequently. If you want to unload, you can only do it once a year without throwing away your earned dividend.

That's not how dividends work.

You have to hold the fund on the ex-dividend date...

Pays out once in Dec. If you buy in Feb and sell in Oct, you're not getting your dividend although you earned most of it... If you had VTI, you'd get 3 of them.

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

#92
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Considering someone or some activity to be criminal, and accusing them of being a criminal, are two completely different things. I consider most financial institutions to be criminal because it is always their clear intention to circumvent the spirit of the law as closely as possible. The intention is to reap the benefits of breaking the law, without the risk of consequence. When the pitchforks come, these are going…

PFOF does not violate the spirit of the law

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

#94
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true for mutual funds, but Vanguard ETFs are available on Fidelity with no fees.

And ETFs are generally more tax efficient anyways. I'm not sure what the benefit to funds are.

It used to be you could buy fractions of a mutual fund, but not ETFs. Recently, brokerages have started allowed you to do fractional ETFs as well though.

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

#95
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is so predictable to get a straw man argument like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26238410

It's not a straw man argument when the counterargument you propose is "actually, evading regulation is the point".

If a country does not have a functioning banking system, then it isn't evading regulation.

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

#96
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your counter assumes that it's one or the other, but there could be more reasons, such as doing well but looking to steal even more market share. At over $10 trillion AUM, it's hard to think that they're "not doing so well".

So then why reduce fees now? Why not years ago? Are they just suddenly feeling that generous?

Vanguard has been reducing fees on a pretty regular basis.

My assumption is that the corporate leaders go for a dip in the McDuck money pond every year, and when the level is too high that it risks overflowing, they adjust the fees down.

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

#97
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 r…

The idea of making financial decisions based on UI/UX is extraordinary to me.

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

#98
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…

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…

Fidelity uses those funds as marketing, and they make up for it with all the other services and funds they offer. It's intentional, and it's working.

Vanguard is more and more becoming a group that just wants to run ETFs and if you want to use them, they're making it harder and harder. They recently dumped all their 401(k) and similar plans from being in-house to some other provider.

Saves costs, makes support annoying.

Of course, you can use a Fidelity account to own Vanguard ETFs if you wanted.

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

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now I trust Vanguard just a little more.

Agreed—this strengthens my feelings about the brand. And I write this as someone who also holds (a tiny amount of) crypto

Vanguard won't let you trade anything even tangentially related to crypto FYI

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

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started using E-trade because of this instead of transferring my vested stock to Vanguard. Already had an account so it was zero effort to convert to my usual funds as ETFs which has the bonus of being transferable between brokerages unlike mutual funds.

> convert to my usual funds as ETFs Do you mean that you sold mutual funds at Vanguard, and used the cash to buy ETFs at eTrade? This means you had to pay tax on capital gains, right? Or is there some trick I don't know about, vis-a-vis converting mutual funds into equivalent ETFs, without a taxable event?

The funds come from selling stock as it vests. Stuff already in Vanguard stays there until I feel annoyed enough to move it.
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