VGTSX now has Admiral Shares

[Onward]

Effective today, Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund offers lower-cost Admiral Shares™ for clients who invest at least $10,000 in the fund. The expense ratio for the new shares is 0.20%, which is considerably lower than the already low 0.32% expense ratio of the fund's Investor Shares.

https://personal.vanguard.com/us/insights/article/fund-announcement-A-11292010

 

[easysurfer]

https://personal.vanguard.com/us/insights/article/fund-announcement-A-11292010

Thanks for the info.

Now I have a full house -- Total Bond, Total Stock and Total Int'l Stock

 

[Texas Proud]

Good to know... just moved mine...

 

[73ss454]

+1 Thanks!

 

[movaly1]

Thanks! I figured it was going to happen soon since I have had a "Convert to Admiral Shares" link on my account for over a week (even though it said I had no funds eligible to convert when I tried to do the conversion).

 

[Lisa99]

Thanks for the heads-up. Just converted ours.

 

[BA]

I wish Vanguard offers admiral shares for the FTSE All-World ex-US Index (VFWIX)

 

[mickeyd]

I converted (exchanged) both my Roth and IRA today online. A drop in ER from .32 to .20 is huge, even for VG.

 

[veremchuka]

excellent!

 

[chemist]

Arrggghhh I converted two of our accounts but it won't let me convert the holding in my wife's 403(b).

I have been resisting rolling it over to a tIRA because I wanted to do a Roth conversion of her small tIRA ($20k), *then* do the rollover on her $250K 403(b). The reason is most of her tIRA is after tax money. May have to abandon that strategy now. Will call my Flagship rep tomorrow and get the skinny on pros and cons.

 

[TromboneAl]

I have over 10K in that fund in an HSA account. Do you think that will make a difference?

 

[Onward]

I have over 10K in that fund in an HSA account. Do you think that will make a difference?

As far as I know, all the VG shares in my HSA are already Admiral shares (regardless of how many you own). You may already have Admiral.

 

[ziggy29]

As far as I know, all the VG shares in my HSA are already Admiral shares (regardless of how many you own). You may already have Admiral.

I've read that Vanguard recently starting converting qualified account balances into Admiral shares even when the client didn't specifically request it, so it's possible that some people have been converted and don't know it.

 

[Keim]

I've read that Vanguard recently starting converting qualified account balances into Admiral shares even when the client didn't specifically request it, so it's possible that some people have been converted and don't know it.

Yes: They did that for me, after sending me a letter notifying me of such upcoming change.

I can't complain...

 

[RunningBum]

Good stuff. I was thinking to just keep in the individual Europe/Pacific/Emerging funds since the cost is very slightly lower (.01 if in admiral for all), but realized that any re-balancing in and out of Emerging would hit a transaction fee. So I think I'm just going to bite the fee once and convert all next time I rebalance. I'm actually pretty good right now, but when I roll over my 401K with it's intl funds it'll need to change.

 

[Onward]

Vanguard recently starting converting qualified account balances into Admiral shares even when the client didn't specifically request it

Not only will they convert to Admiral without your requesting it, but you can't prevent the conversion to Admiral even if you want to. (I tried it, on an acct that I know will fall below $10k regularly. No dice.)

 

[tuixiu]

Just curious = what do they do if Admiral Shares account falls under the min? Do they convert it to a normal (sailor?) account? Does it matter if it went under because of withdraw versus market performance?

 

[RunningBum]

I've had it fall below due to market, and maybe even withdrawals, and they kept it in Admiral. If it's way below I think they warned me, and then converted back. Close enough they might've kept in Admiral. It might just be that they only occasionally convert up or down, or it might be that they are more lenient before converting down, but you can't just temporarily peak and convert into admiral and stay there forever if you fall back lower and stay there.

 

[jazz4cash]

I've read that Vanguard recently starting converting qualified account balances into Admiral shares even when the client didn't specifically request it, so it's possible that some people have been converted and don't know it.

Wow...this just happened to DW's IRA. I got the statements and it said "transaction -XXX shares..... Balance=$0" and I nearly fainted. My first thought was identity theft. Then I saw the next page was a new account with matching balance and "Welcome to Admiral Shares". I barely noticed the post on here about the threshold being lowered because I assumed it not would affect us. This is tertiary account so I don't pay much attention to it and I guess I missed any advance warnings. Very nice of Vanguard to move to the lower expense funds automatically.