Vanguard, Fidelity or Schwab?

[Koolau]

It sounds like all the big houses want to keep OUR money. Go figure.

 

[Texas Proud]

WOW.... and I have a small account at Vanguard that I will be closing sooner than I wanted as I will use the money soon... no need to pay $100 to take my money OUT...

SOOO, hope FIDO has a good transfer offer to get the rest of my money out...

 

[MarieIG]

WOW.... and I have a small account at Vanguard that I will be closing sooner than I wanted as I will use the money soon... no need to pay $100 to take my money OUT...

SOOO, hope FIDO has a good transfer offer to get the rest of my money out...

Let us know!

 

[JJpop]

SCHWAB.
Great service and an office close by.
Huge difference if there is an office to talk to someone face to face.

 

[523HRR]

Just finished The Four Pillars of Investing Second Edition, and pgs 276-277 give the most concise but informative summary of the majors I've ever read - some I've heard, some I hadn't but never so clearly stated. I would love to share it word for word, but I've been correctly advised that's too close to copyright infringement. This doesn't have near the impact, but a few tidbits:

• Pay attention to the number of securities held by any fund or ETF. e.g. two similar sounding funds at differing firms one has 855 holdings while an other has 7881.
• Limit your purchases of open-end funds to those of your custodian (Vanguard, etc.)
• When this book went to press a couple months ago, the default sweep fund yield at Schwab was 0.40% vs 3.7% at Vanguard or Fidelity - in 2019 134% (not a typo) of Schwabs earning came from net interest. If you have money that sits in cash, allocation or between trades, for whatever reason...
• Fidelity offers low fees on index/passive funds to lure investors into active funds. And check fees closely, some Fido funds that sound almost the same have substantially different fees.
• The author acknowledged elsewhere "customer support at Vanguard has deteriorated." He also says "how long this free ride (customer service) at Fido and Schwab will last is anyone's guess, so enjoy it while it lasts."
• Competition among the three will only intensify, so stay tuned, as their relative advantages and disadvantages can easily change.

Again, the actual text is FAR better than my summary...

We hold assets in all three and like each of them. Still think it’s important to diversify across brokerage firms.

 

[Koolau]

We hold assets in all three and like each of them. Still think it’s important to diversify across brokerage firms.

If nothing else, it's kinda nice to have money in different places in case some sort of "hold" gets attached to your funds at one of them. I had a brief hole on an account at Vanguard (just the one fund, fortunately.) I was glad I had several other sources of funds just in case I needed them.

 

[Lorenzo]

We hold assets in all three and like each of them. Still think it’s important to diversify across brokerage firms.

Yeah. I posted a thread a few weeks ago to ask that very question--diversification across brokerage firms. One of my first questions after joining this site . I have long held accounts at Schwab, but in view of the replies in that thread I decided that when I roll over my 401k it's going to be to Fidelity or Vanguard, not Schwab.