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Vanguard, Fidelity, and everybody else
Old 03-18-2012, 06:00 PM   #1
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Vanguard, Fidelity, and everybody else

I haven't done in-depth analysis of which fund families are a better buy than others, but I seem to see the most frequently mentioned on this forum are Vanguard and Fidelity. My 401k is with Oppenheimer, but I have some IRA's with Putnam. Should I be looking at Vanguard and/or Fidelity, or others, for long-term placement of my money? And if so, what makes them the best choices? I'm not looking for out-and-out investment advice, I'd just like to know why they seem to get the most ink.
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Old 03-18-2012, 06:04 PM   #2
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These old threads might help:

http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...ers-32959.html
http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...ard-38660.html
http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...ard-42975.html
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Old 03-18-2012, 06:06 PM   #3
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They get the most ink because they are the least expensive by a very wide margin.
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Old 03-18-2012, 06:10 PM   #4
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Both Fidelity and Vangaurd are condidered low cost with many no load funds available. They have a full compliment of services and I acually use both. vanguard has my 401K. Fideility has my individual Mad Money stocks as a trade stocks like thier trading tools tools. I also own a significant amount of different Americam funds that had up front loads however very low expenses inside the funds with low turnover rates and better overall long term 10 years returns for the style of funds I was shopping for about ten years ago..
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Old 03-18-2012, 06:25 PM   #5
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Thanks for the quick replies, all -- I'll be checking out the links posted by REWahoo.
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Old 03-18-2012, 06:53 PM   #6
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Vanguard ETF funds are some of the lowest cost investment choices around. But they are available at any brokerage firm. And some firms offer free or dirt cheap trades.

Fidelity is also good because they offer free trades on many ishares ETFs, and have a few good low cost index funds (although their selection recently got worse with a doubling of expense ratio of their International Spartan fund).
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Old 03-18-2012, 08:49 PM   #7
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When I was doing a review for a new 401(k) provider, Putnam was not that bad.... so I would not throw it out just because it is not one of the big two...

Vanguard did not want to have anything to do with us as we were way to small... so we went with Fidelity and are pleased... but Putnam was our next choice...

Can not remember about Oppenheimer... I do think they were a bit pricey....
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Old 03-18-2012, 10:01 PM   #8
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Years ago my old broker put me into Oppenheimer funds, I later found out that the up front charge to put money into the funds was 5.75%, can you imagine? I got out of there fast and didn't even bother to look at the ER's on the funds.

My advise is not to commit any new funds to Oppenheimer and call Vanguard ASAP.
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Old 03-19-2012, 01:03 AM   #9
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I am at Vanguard and Edward Jones. I get very good service from both companies.
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Originally Posted by teekaymn View Post
Should I be looking at Vanguard and/or Fidelity, or others, for long-term placement of my money? And if so, what makes them the best choices?
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Old 03-19-2012, 04:41 AM   #10
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I have been happy with Schwab whom I have been using for the past 7 years. I find their website, trading, banking, on line education, news, and money transfers are all very well designed and reliable.

I have started to go to some of their educational workshops at the local branch since I retired and most of them have been worth while. Some have been better than others.

I don't know too much about their mutual funds. I own some Vanguard funds which I hold in my Schwab account.
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Old 03-19-2012, 05:41 AM   #11
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In addition to the interest in no load funds and low expense ratios, many here like index funds rather than actively managed funds. Vanguard, Fidelity and Schwab have good selections of low cost index funds.
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Old 03-19-2012, 09:33 AM   #12
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They get the most ink because they are the least expensive by a very wide margin.
+1 that was my first thought - Cost. It is the only variable you can control.
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Old 03-19-2012, 09:41 AM   #13
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I have been happy with Schwab whom I have been using for the past 7 years. I find their website, trading, banking, on line education, news, and money transfers are all very well designed and reliable.

I have started to go to some of their educational workshops at the local branch since I retired and most of them have been worth while. Some have been better than others.

I don't know too much about their mutual funds. I own some Vanguard funds which I hold in my Schwab account.
In terms of ETF investing, too, Vanguard, Schwab and Fidelity all have a list of ETFs that can be traded with no commissions. Vanguard and Schwab ETFs can be traded commission-free at their respective sponsoring brokerages, and Fidelity has some iShares funds that can be traded with no commissions.

The Vanguard and Schwab offerings are very comparable in expenses; for any given asset class there are times the Vanguard ETF is cheaper and times when the Schwab ETF are cheaper. (For the most part, the iShares are a little higher in expenses.)

Vanguard, Schwab and Fidelity have been competing and trying to one-up each other in terms of offering lower cost, lower fee investing options for "Bogleheaded" investors. And we as investors are the winners for it. Competition can be a wonderful thing.
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Old 03-19-2012, 10:52 AM   #14
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Vanguard ETF funds are some of the lowest cost investment choices around. But they are available at any brokerage firm. And some firms offer free or dirt cheap trades.

Fidelity is also good because they offer free trades on many ishares ETFs, and have a few good low cost index funds (although their selection recently got worse with a doubling of expense ratio of their International Spartan fund).
We just built a ETF portfolio at Fidelity using the commission free iShares. Given our interest in regular rebalancing the free trades make it a great deal.

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Old 03-19-2012, 11:21 AM   #15
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I started with a big name full service retail brokerage trading individual stocks exclusively, learned a lot but wised up after a few years of moderately higher commissions.

I then moved my whole portfolio to Fidelity for about 10 years when I traded individual stocks and active mutual funds, it was a good fit then, I was 100% equities in those days. When I stopped trading individual stocks and focusing on index funds, I moved everything to Vanguard (about 15 years ago). Vanguard had way more index funds to choose from. Fidelity provided more hand holding than Vanguard, but I no longer needed the help by then. However, Fidelity advice was usually good but not always, mostly bright "kids" with narrow knowledge.

My old employer had our 401k's with Schwab. The funds were garbage, but that was my employers fault (dumb selections), Schwab had decent funds - just not options for us.

I'd be comfortable with Vanguard, Fidelity or Schwab - though I like Vanguard best for DIY index investors.

Best of luck...
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Old 03-19-2012, 11:34 AM   #16
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I have been happy with Schwab
Me too. I've been with Schwab for over 20 years and so far, so good.
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I own some Vanguard funds which I hold in my Schwab account.
If you haven't discovered this yet, you can ask Schwab to set up your account to trade Vanguard funds commission free.


I think an investor can do just fine using either Vanguard, Schwab or Fidelity. I stick with Schwab because DW has a bad case of "investor-phobia" and requires a brick and mortar office nearby. Fidelity would also work for us. I've studied Vanguard and if it were not for DW's craving for brick and mortar facilities, Vanguard would work just fine for me.

The key thing is to avoid a brokerage where salespeople try to put you into loaded MF's with high ER's or try to sell you other products which are more focused on paying the salesperson a nice commission as opposed to meeting your needs efficiently. Vanguard, Schwab, Fidelity all meet this requirement. After that, whether you're paying a .06% or .08% ER for a TSM index fund isn't going to make all that much difference.
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Old 03-19-2012, 12:12 PM   #17
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We just built a ETF portfolio at Fidelity using the commission free iShares. Given our interest in regular rebalancing the free trades make it a great deal.
I use the free trades to my advantage as well. I get my credit card rewards dumped into my fidelity account, along with $75/month or so in interest on a bond. Every few months I end up with a few hundred bucks in cash in my brokerage account and I can buy a few shares of an ishares ETF. However the comparable vanguard ETFs are starting to be a much better deal in terms of expense ratios so I will be slowly switching over to vanguard ETFs.
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Old 03-19-2012, 12:16 PM   #18
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I use Vanguard since my MegaCorp uses them for 401k.

I also use Fidelity because I manage my dad's retirement assets, and he had them there for years already.

I must admit I think Fidelity's online site is slightly easier to navigate, but otherwise I'm ok with either one. With Vanguard I've not found a way to integrate DW's portfolio with mine...but then I've never asked them if it's possible. When you're a "buy and hold" person...you only look online about twice a year.
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Old 03-19-2012, 01:09 PM   #19
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Vanguard is FAR BEHIND Fido and Schwab as far as what you can do on the site..........
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Old 03-19-2012, 01:15 PM   #20
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Vanguard is FAR BEHIND Fido and Schwab as far as what you can do on the site..........
That was/is my experience too. And Vanguard's reports/format is the clumsiest too. Though I still like their index find choices.
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