Vanguard Transactions Take Too Long

[Spanky]

Originally Posted by RichoRosai

FWIW here's what they told me.

When using the Electronic Bank Transfer option, it is a three business day
transmission process. The timeline is as follows:

DAY 1
Transaction is received before 10 p.m., Eastern time.

DAY 2
The trade date for your purchase.

DAY 3
Your bank account is debited. Completed transaction is viewable on
Vanguard.com.

.. and another 7 to 10 days before the shares will be available for trading or exhanging.

[gtlong2]

Just got whacked by Vanguard on a fund purchase yesterday. Thought I would take advantage of the 10% drop in the market on Monday and buy in by purchasing with an electronic bank transfer prior to the market close.

Find out today that the transaction didn't clear yesterday and I'll get today's closing price. (i.e. just add an effective 5% sales charge to my purchase, since the market is back up today).

Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, and others don't have this delay for a bank transfer. Ridiculous.

ugh.

[FinanceDude]

Originally Posted by gtlong2

Just got whacked by Vanguard on a fund purchase yesterday. Thought I would take advantage of the 10% drop in the market on Monday and buy in by purchasing with an electronic bank transfer prior to the market close.

Find out today that the transaction didn't clear yesterday and I'll get today's closing price. (i.e. just add an effective 5% sales charge to my purchase, since the market is back up today).

Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, and others don't have this delay for a bank transfer. Ridiculous.

ugh.

Yeah, but on the bright side, they have the lowest expenses out there...........

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Not enough poorly performing active managed funds that charge huge front end loads though.

I think they're just fine with things taking a day or two longer than anyone else. They dont want market timers being drawn in that will come to count on fast transactions.

I guess the main question is this: would you be as pissed about it if your COB transaction today followed another 800 point drop in the market?

[FIREdreamer]

This is what I do at Vanguard: as soon as I have extra cash, I transfer it to my Vanguard MMF. When I see a good deal, I do an exchange (no delay) and that way I am guaranteed to scoop up the fund I want at the price I want.

I always keep some cash in the MMF (it's my EF) and I sometimes use the float to make transactions. I buy a fund with the EF money while new money is being transferred from my checking account to the MMF to replenish the EF. That way I don't have to worry about money transfer delays.

[FUEGO]

Originally Posted by FinanceDude

Yeah, but on the bright side, they have the lowest expenses out there...........

hmm, so that guy just paid a 5% sales charge at Vanguard. I forget, what is the sales charge on Class A american funds (equity funds) for invested assets under $25,000? Is it really still 5.75%??

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Too late, I already tagged him.

And yes, its 5.75%, although if you'd like you can skip that and pay 1.5% ER a year for the funds.

[FUEGO]

Originally Posted by cute fuzzy bunny

Too late, I already tagged him.

And yes, its 5.75%, although if you'd like you can skip that and pay 1.5% ER a year for the funds.

Hey, I'm unfortunately too familiar with those class B shares that I'm slowly getting rid of. Problem is you pay the 1.5% and then if you try to get out, they bend you over on the way out too (if you sell in less than 8 years). That's ok, the american funds I'm in have only under performed by a few percent over the last couple years. It's just money, right?

[FinanceDude]

Originally Posted by FUEGO

hmm, so that guy just paid a 5% sales charge at Vanguard. I forget, what is the sales charge on Class A american funds (equity funds) for invested assets under $25,000? Is it really still 5.75%??

Is that a rhetorical question? I buy ETFs and stocks, so i can't help you...........

[FinanceDude]

Originally Posted by FUEGO

Hey, I'm unfortunately too familiar with those class B shares that I'm slowly getting rid of. Problem is you pay the 1.5% and then if you try to get out, they bend you over on the way out too (if you sell in less than 8 years). That's ok, the american funds I'm in have only under performed by a few percent over the last couple years. It's just money, right?

Why don't you sell them if you think they are so bad?? Seems funny to slam a fund you own......

[73ss454]

Maybe he doesn't want to pay the capital gains, he's already been ripped off, no?

FD, do you think he bought them after he found this forum? (heh) Or do you think his broker told him all about the fees?

[FUEGO]

Originally Posted by FinanceDude

Why don't you sell them if you think they are so bad?? Seems funny to slam a fund you own......

I'm waiting for the class B to convert to class A so I don't pay a back end sales load. They are stuck in some old IRA's and the dollar amounts are low, so I've been lazy in not selling and transferring the funds to a consolidated IRA.

The class A shares I still own (the great majority of my Am Funds holdings) have a sales charge that is a sunk cost and I plan to be out completely by 2010. The ER is around 0.6%, so not ridiculous, but much higher than I am accustomed to paying. Right now the tax benefits of unwinding these slowly outweighs my desire to be rid of these laggard funds.

[FinanceDude]

Originally Posted by 73ss454

FD, do you think he bought them after he found this forum? (heh) Or do you think his broker told him all about the fees?

If his advisor didn't that's BS. If the advisor pushed B shares, he/she should be fired by ALL clients, not just FUEGO......

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Oh I'm sure the advisor told him about the fees, just before feeding him the BS about how they were going to outperform funds that didnt charge a front end fee.

I mean, how good can those cheap, managerless funds be anyhow? You dont give the good stuff away for free.

[FUEGO]

Originally Posted by FinanceDude

If his advisor didn't that's BS. If the advisor pushed B shares, he/she should be fired by ALL clients, not just FUEGO......

I asked him "Well, which class should I go with, the A shares or the B shares?". He suggested the B shares.

The Edward Jones guy I had wasn't half bad - just doing his business making money off of suckers like me. He did give me some good advice about the 72t plan that I had not heard of before and that totally changed my financial and tax planning (for the better).

I eventually asked him what it would cost me to get into $10,000 or so of an ETF index fund or a no transaction cost vanguard fund through him. Vanguard funds weren't available and a $10,000 order would cost $100 in commission. That is when I decided huge commissions and lack of fund choices didn't serve me as an investor so I dumped him in favor of vanguard and fidelity.

[73ss454]

So FD, do you think you could put a call into Edward Jones and the guy fired? (heh)

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Only if he's an Obama supporter.

[retire@40]

I'm surprised the planner would even deal with you for a measly $10K (unless there was other money you didn't mention here).

I would think most financial planners wouldn't take on clients with less than $50K to $100K to invest.

I think a minimum to invest in a "Brinker" plan is around $100K, for example. Not sure how cost effective Brinker is, but I heard good stories about them from a few people.

[FUEGO]

Originally Posted by retire@40

I'm surprised the planner would even deal with you for a measly $10K (unless there was other money you didn't mention here).

I would think most financial planners wouldn't take on clients with less than $50K to $100K to invest.

I think a minimum to invest in a "Brinker" plan is around $100K, for example. Not sure how cost effective Brinker is, but I heard good stories about them from a few people.

My parents have large accounts with him. At the time I'm sure he was doing me a "favor" by setting up a couple of IRA's for me and DW. We did end up putting over $100k with him - but that was a long time ago before we had real money to invest (thank goodness).

He probably knew we would be potentially great clients shortly with decent inflows of cash given our family history there and where DW and I were at in life at the time. In other words he spotted a mark and made his move.

[FUEGO]

Originally Posted by 73ss454

So FD, do you think you could put a call into Edward Jones and the guy fired? (heh)

I wouldn't want to get him fired. It's not like he tried to sell me an annuity or whole life or anything. Well, he did try to sell me whole life, but I kindly suggested that the $20/month term policy I could obtain would more than cover our needs at the time and would be a better investment.