Anyone ever leave Vanguard?

[almost there]

That is a concern. LOL LOL

 

[NanoSour]

Edited to add: One caveat; I should probably mention that the reason I found the Early Retirement Forum was Vanguard. I followed the Morningstar Vanguard Diehards forum years ago, before the Bogleheads split off from it. On Diehards somebody mentioned an Early Retirement Forum had just been started, and I began reading over here. Then Bogleheads once it was started, instead of Vanguard Diehards. Then eventually I registered here. So, Vanguard is really why I am here at all.

I'm quite the opposite. The ER Forum is why I'm at Vanguard. Couldn't be happier to be done with all that active trading I was doing before ER and the move the Vanguard lazy portfolio.

 

[Ed B]

When i saw a portion of these images in the mobile friendly preview pane i thought it was going to be this guy.

 

[GrayHare]

"Relax," said John Bogle, "We are programmed to receive,
"You can cashout any time you like, but you can never leave!"

 

[Scuba]

I respect Vanguard for their low cost philosophy but I moved my investments to Fidelity many years ago. At the time, Fidelity had much better customer service. Their private client group service is awesome but even their basic service is pretty good. However, I set up a small portfolio for my MIL with Vanguard. Low cost and I handle everything for her so it is simple.

 

[youbet]

I'm quite the opposite. The ER Forum is why I'm at Vanguard. Couldn't be happier to be done with all that active trading I was doing before ER and the move the Vanguard lazy portfolio.

Why do you think you need to be at Vanguard to have a "lazy portfolio" and be a passive investor? The other major houses such as Fidelity and Schwab now offer a broad array of low cost index funds. I think you can do just fine at Vanguard as a passive investor, but Vanguard isn't the only place for low cost passive investing these days.

There has been a lot of good competition between the majors the past few years. Vanguard has been trying to shed it's image as being only a good place for low cost index funds and be seen more as a good full service brokerage house. Fidelity, Schwab, etc., now offer low cost index funds. And, of course, if you're an infrequent trader, and therefore don't mind paying a few commissions, you can buy any company's funds at any company's brokerage.

I manage 90%+ of my portfolio in a semi-Boglehead style but have never had an account with Vanguard. I do own some Vanguard MF's and ETF's.

 

[ejman]

Disaster recovery. What happens if companies X systems go batty?

Bug, hacked by who ever, physical datacenter is gone or facilities evacuated, earthquake, flood, fire, hazmat hazard, overworked systems guy who is making meth at night?

You know a disaster.

There's an advantage to some duplicity in systems.

This is the reason why I keep some investments (less than 20%) outside the FIDO - Vanguard orbit. It costs me a bit more on fees but I just feel better having a few investments outside those two behemoths.

 

[almost there]

Have moved things around quite a bit this year. Have 4 places I keep 250k or less in.
Some fixed, some trading, some IRA, Some Roth. etc. Just seems to make sense for me.
Moved from VG to CS since I started this thread. Super happy with the move.
And scored a $600.00 bonus in the process. No brainer for me.
Now have 7 account #s in 4 institutions. Personal capital puts it all on one screen.
Super simple.

 

[MRG]

This is the reason why I keep some investments (less than 20%) outside the FIDO - Vanguard orbit. It costs me a bit more on fees but I just feel better having a few investments outside those two behemoths.

There's benefits for some going outside the big two or three. Perhaps no more than n+1 as they begin to duplicate very quickly. Of course if we have 3-4 excellent choices what else do you want.

Then there's stupid stuff to protect against, it quickly falls into what are we protecting against?(cheery crap like what if major cities ABC, and XYZ no longer exist?) Been there done that, made a fair amount of money consulting for Y2K.

 

[COcheesehead]

This is the reason why I keep some investments (less than 20%) outside the FIDO - Vanguard orbit. It costs me a bit more on fees but I just feel better having a few investments outside those two behemoths.

I find the value in consolidation outweighs the small, if any, benefit from spreading it into multiple companies. Having the ability to have a "one look" at your AA, returns, tax info, statements, etc to me is very valuable and yields more results on a regular basis, than planning for the most unlikely of scenarios.

 

[almost there]

"Anyone ever leave Vanguard?" If you do, give them a good 3-4 weeks. Still waiting for my IRA to sweep. Maybe next week.... The Roths moved 3 weeks ago. No idea why the IRA is taking so long..... Am being told the 18th. Will see.............

 

[mathjak107]

i am down to about 5% of assets at vanguard . i much prefer fidelty .

 

[euro]

We have about 40% of assets at Vanguard.
Another 52% is in employee plans, so subject to moving in the future via rollover.

8.0% is at Schwab in a taxable account.

At this time Schwab is first choice when it is time to rollover. Customer services and features are preferred by us.

I agree, Schwab has been coming on strong recently in terms of customer service, etc - I will move more in their direction in the future, if they keep it up.

 

[ERD50]

It may have been discussed before, but if you can, it will probably work much better to ask the target financial institution to "pull" from the institution you are leaving. As I understand it, and some personal experience shows, they will respond to the "pull" fairly quickly. But if you ask the group you are leaving to "push" it to the other institution, they will drag their feet (and your money).

It just makes sense it will go faster when put in the hands of the institution that is gaining, and it has worked that way in my (admittedly limited) experience.

-ERD50

 

[Chuckanut]

The best reason to have some money outside of Vanguard or any other such place is in the event some 'disaster' knocks them out of operation for a week or two and you need to get some funds quickly. It's nice to have options.

 

[mathjak107]

we had an attempted fraud on our fidelity account .

the account was shut tight for 2 weeks while new accounts ,checks and cards were established .

good thing we use local banks too so we had sources to get money and pay bills .

fidelity has their own team of hackers and they found my wife's account info for sale on an underground illegal site .

funny thing is she never even logs in on line .

after experiencing being locked out of our money now 3x we make sure we have other sources and some cash for a few days .

both 9-11 and hurricane sandy saw atm's and banks shut down here as communications were lost . .