Fidelity or Vanguard

[swakyaby]

My original plan was to consolidate my various IRAs to one account by retirement time, and perhaps consolidate all accounts to one mutual fund company. While w*orking, I had Vanguard, Fidelity, and T.Rowe Price. But I’ve been reluctant to sell my assets at T.Rowe Price because they were particularly helpful in transferring assets out of the grip of a mutual fund company that had frozen my retirement account for inexplicable reasons, preventing me from accessing my own money for over a year. Now in retirement, I don’t wish to have all my financial eggs in one basket because as MRG stated, sometimes stuff happens. So I will always have at least 2 fund companies, especially since I have no other source of income.

 

[BigMoneyJim]

Fid is my preferred choice and kinda decided to move that direction for these reasons:

[...]

So my question is: Does anyone have any ideas about why keeping the VG account open would make sense? Am I missing anything important about VG?

I have access to all VG Index funds via Fid and I don't do anything with VG other than check the balance regularly and get my 1099.

I have some potential biases: I've worked for two of the big three firms (in IT), and have had the majority of my invested funds in the third for almost 30 years. I am intentionally cagey in revealing whom I've worked for, and should I find myself wanting to go back to full-time work I'm fairly likely to end up back at one or the other of them.

My personal investment philosophy seems to mesh the best with Vanguard's fund offerings, but their site has been the least intuitive to use, and multiple times I've had trouble getting my money back out when I bought a house and as I'm starting retirement withdrawals. They have annoyed me in other ways, too, but these ways may be particular to very few people and not widely relevant. I suspect having a credit union instead of a bank is causing some of the headaches in fund transfers. I am particularly annoyed and even offended at VG's apparent push to make every account a brokerage account, although I'm don't even know if you can get fund-only non-brokerage accounts at the others anymore.

Fidelity has always seemed to have the most intuitive site; it just takes me less time to figure stuff out there. Their general push towards active management and managed services doesn't mesh with my philosophy, but come to think of it they aren't all that pushy. I recently tried to get money out for the first time and ran into challenges with the online tools, and I haven't bothered to reach out to their customer service even though they're consistently praised for that.

I've had the least trouble with Schwab; everything just works for me, although the site's intuitive-ness falls between VG and Fid. Their corporate philosophy seems to be "your choice": they have active management, managed services, and RIA referrals and tools, but as a company the don't seem too fussed about whether you manage yourself or use them or a 3rd-party advisor; they're just thrilled to have the AUM.

My favorite all-time fund [-]is[/-] was Wellington. Someone above said you could get it at Fidelity, but I didn't think that was true. I certainly can't get it at Schwab. (I still have active accounts at all three.) I can get Wellesley, though.

 

[foxfirev5]

As I've said many times before I use both. Fido for service and better online tools and VG for the next best option. I will never put all my eggs in one basket.

 

[bolt]

IIRC a 90s/aol. coulcocism in online vernacular acknowledged an overwhelming position of "Get both!"
Good Luck!

 

[pb4uski]

Have had Vanguard for almost years and Fidelity for a couple years. Neither are outstanding IME.

Many rave about Fido's website and tools but I don't get it... they are ok but nothing to rave about.

Fido's cash/MM offerings are very mediocre.... Vanguard's are better IME.

 

[Packman]

Fidelity for me - 100%. Their private client customer service has been outstanding for me. These days most customer service departments are a joke (thinking health insurance company and cable). That said, my SIL who doesn't qualify for the higher service level, does not like FIDO after I recommended her to them. I used VG a while back when their fees were so much lower than everyone else, but that has mostly gone away.

 

[tdv2]

Never had a Vanguard account. I have been with Fido for over 25 years and have never had a bad experience.

 

[RobbieB]

Fidelity

 

[2017ish]

Have both now. Trying to figure out whether maintaining either vanguard flagship level is worth anything at all for us.

Like the free international atm at Fido (also schwab). Considering consolidating at Fido and Schwab to make things easier (local offices) for DW (and our sons) in the likely event I die first.

 

[Markola]

This thread is about Fido and VG but others have mentioned their Schwab experiences, too.

I started investing in my 20s at Schwab and had good service experiences. After settling on an index fund strategy, I looked around one day and realized, a) I own nothing but VG funds, and b) Who is paying for all these fancy downtown offices? Answer: Probably me in ways that I can’t see.

One day a Schwab advisor called me out of the blue to say I was making a big mistake being in index funds and he could do better. That’s when I moved everything to Vanguard and haven’t looked back. It was about $700K at the time, which generated a concerned call from a manager and an honest answer from me.

 

[sengsational]

Vanguard.



It's unique in that it doesn't have to answer to shareholders. I have Fidelity too and getting things done is 95% the same between the two.

 

[TechLead]

Fidelity account can be configured with Hardware Secure ID. Two-Factor Authentication. Hence I vote for Fidelity.

But you have buy your own Hardware Key. They don't sell/provide it. So I would rather go to Schwab or E*Trade . They give it to you at no cost.

 

[VungTau]

Have our holdings in Vanguard and T. Rowe Price. Never had a problem with either.

TRP is nice! I like their free access to WSJ, Turbo Tax and Morningstar too!

 

[braumeister]

Fidelity account can be configured with Hardware Secure ID. Two-Factor Authentication. Hence I vote for Fidelity.

But you have buy your own Hardware Key. They don't sell/provide it. So I would rather go to Schwab or E*Trade . They give it to you at no cost.

I use the Symantec VIP Access app on my phone for that. No cost and just as secure (AFAIK).

 

[eytonxav]

Unless you are holding large portions of your port in VG Admiral Shares and want their lower ERs, I would move everything to Fidelity. You can certainly purchase or house regular VG fund shares at Fidelity.

 

[TechLead]

I use the Symantec VIP Access app on my phone for that. No cost and just as secure (AFAIK).

Not as secure. Any software can be hacked or have some bug that opens door for hackers.

As a Software Engineer I would never trust it. It is hardware keys for me.

 

[OldShooter]

Unless you are holding large portions of your port in VG Admiral Shares and want their lower ERs, I would move everything to Fidelity. ...

Are you sure this is still the case? I believe that VG eliminated the "Investor" share class and moved everyone to "Admiral" class. IIRC that happened at Schwab a little more than a year ago. So while I was a lowly Schwab Investor with far more invested than the Admiral threshold, I have now been dubbed Admiral.

 

[eytonxav]

Are you sure this is still the case? I believe that VG eliminated the "Investor" share class and moved everyone to "Admiral" class. IIRC that happened at Schwab a little more than a year ago. So while I was a lowly Schwab Investor with far more invested than the Admiral threshold, I have now been dubbed Admiral.

I hold admiral share outside of Fidelity and when I inquired they told me the could convert the shares to investor class. That was quite a while ago, but morningstar still shows VWELX which is investor class:
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/vwelx/quote

 

[OldShooter]

I hold admiral share outside of Fidelity and when I inquired they told me the could convert the shares to investor class. That was quite a while ago, but morningstar still shows VWELX which is investor class:
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/vwelx/quote

Interesting. I hold only a few VG index funds at Schwab and all of those got automatically converted. I was quite happy as the inability to buy Admiral shares always annoyed me.

I just went to the Schwab site and VWENX (Wellington Admiral) is listed with very low minimum order sizes. I started to enter a trade and it seemed to go just fine. VWELX is also listed there and seems to be tradeable. Oddly, the VWELX minimum purchases are higher than VWENX. Expenses for VWENX are listed as 17bps and VWELX at 25bps. Not sure why anyone would ever buy VWELX.

So I guess anyone interested in this issue would probably have to contact Fido to see what their deal is.

 

[atmsmshr]

Fidelity because of:
- close by office that we have an established relationship (for DW)
- Good customer service
- Good web site
- Good phone app
- international ATM
- Credit card rebate
- my pension administrator
- previous custodian of 401k
- and just plain inertia

 

[Midpack]

Are you sure this is still the case? I believe that VG eliminated the "Investor" share class and moved everyone to "Admiral" class. IIRC that happened at Schwab a little more than a year ago. So while I was a lowly Schwab Investor with far more invested than the Admiral threshold, I have now been dubbed Admiral.

I've only had Adm shares for years, but I didn't realize they'd eliminated the Inv share class. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[DrRoy]

I've also dealt with both, but have been Fidelity for decades.

 

[Markola]

Fidelity because of:

- close by office that we have an established relationship (for DW)

- Good customer service

- Good web site

- Good phone app

- international ATM

- Credit card rebate

- my pension administrator

- previous custodian of 401k

- and just plain inertia

Good reasons. It’s difficult to put a value on the comfort level that comes with first one.

 

[Oilcan]

Good reasons. It’s difficult to put a value on the comfort level that comes with first one.

Our office just closed nine days ago. I usually used to go in to their office about once per month for various reasons so I'm going to miss that part. But in today's world with all the technology we can still do all the things we used to do with Zoom, good old phone calls, etc.

I look for more of the brokerages to close there doors in the next year or two. With them reducing fees and in some cases eliminating fees on their products in the last couple of years, they have to cut their budgets somewhere and rely on tech to continue to do business with there clients.

 

[youbet]

This thread is about Fido and VG but others have mentioned their Schwab experiences, too.

I started investing in my 20s at Schwab and had good service experiences. After settling on an index fund strategy, I looked around one day and realized, a) I own nothing but VG funds, and b) Who is paying for all these fancy downtown offices? Answer: Probably me in ways that I can’t see.

One day a Schwab advisor called me out of the blue to say I was making a big mistake being in index funds and he could do better. That’s when I moved everything to Vanguard and haven’t looked back. It was about $700K at the time, which generated a concerned call from a manager and an honest answer from me.

The tone of your post might inadvertently give the impression that Schwab might push for active management of your account by a Schwab compensated "advisor." They do offer a wide variety of services including relationships with FA's, robo-investing, etc. But, other than your anecdotal story, I've never heard of a Schwab employee pushing to bring assets under paid management.

I've been with Schwab for over 30 years and have never, even in the smallest way, been pushed towards using a "Schwab advisor." I see mention of these services on their site along with mention of many other services, but never feel pressured in the slightest to partake as I might if my funds were at Edward Jones, etc.