Care to share an example of Fidelity's poor customer
service?

I too have been with Fidelity over 20 years. Best brokerage
and/or mutual fund company with which I've worked, of maybe
half a dozen or more, as far as service is concerned.

I have not worked with Vanguard.

"Mike Morgan" <cfpmike[at]twangtown.net> wrote
- quote -

I've had over twenty years' experience with both Fidelity and Vanguard, and
recommend Vanguard. Fidelity's customer service is seriously lacking.

Mike

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<l0200100[at]yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1156618954.811747.225600[at]p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
- quote -

l0200100[at]yahoo.com wrote:
- quote -

Why just Fidelity and Vanguard if you are only thinking about a money
market account. How about your local bank. You can negotiate fees
with them. Then when you know what you want to do, roll the IRA.

<BreadWithSpam[at]fractious.net> wrote in message
news:yobu03wx6nx.fsf[at]panix3.panix.com...
- quote -

That's the theory. I've repeated it myself, though I thought I'd seen
studies that disputed the theory. Right now however, I'm not having any
luck finding such studies.

- quote -


Schwab raised its fees to 40bp in 2003.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...&type=business

With respect to Longleaf, we went through this exchange in 2003; see my
response at:
http://groups.google.com/group/misc....c8e5603a4a451c
(In brief, Longleaf balked at an account maintenance fee - $20/account -
that Schwab instituted for selling NON-ntf funds.)

- quote -

The good news here is that they charge "only" $5/purchase if you purchase
through an automatic (periodic) investment plan. So, once you have a
non-NTF fund with them (pay the $75), you can add to it for $10 or so (a
couple of automatic investments before you cancel). Note that Vanguard has
this beat - they charge $3/purchase through their automatic investment plan.

Mark Freeland
BnetOnewsX[at]sbcglobal.net

Every few years I find it useful to visit an office or representative
for some
transaction or talk. I know one of them has offices in many places.

<BreadWithSpam[at]fractious.net> wrote in message
news:yobu03wx6nx.fsf[at]panix3.panix.com...
- quote -

Actually the fee is round trip so you pay $75 to buy and nothing to sell the
fund...whereas Vanguard is $35 to buy or sell, total $70...not much
difference. But I went with Vanguard after researching this very point, not
for the five bucks, but because I figured normally I would hold a fund for a
while if I bought it, and I hate to give anyone the use of my money for
nothing!

Rich Carreiro <rlcarr[at]animato.arlington.ma.us> writes:

- quote -

It's not necessarily as simple as that. Unless they are
housed by the large fund companies, small funds have to
pay *someone* to do the customer contact stuff - everything
from printing statements to sending out 1099s to cutting
checks to them when they cash out, etc.

Without the vast economy of scale of a Vanguard, a fund
that gets away with having a brokerage take care of all
of that for the 35bp or so that they are charging for NTF
funds isn't all that bad - if those are funds one really
wants.

- quote -

I think calling it a "bribe/kickback" does what they do
a disservice. Every customer that an NTF fund gets through
one of the networks is (a) additional money to manage which,
until the fund gets huge, helps them stay in business; and
(b) a customer that they don't have to spend any money on
for generating statements, mailings, etc. There's no reason
to expect those services for free and no need to denigrate
the charges for them.

OTOH, 35bp is pretty high for that stuff and when Schwab and
some of the others raised the fee a couple of years ago,
several well-known funds pulled out of the networks saying
that the fees had gotten too high. (IIRC, Longleaf was one
of the more vocal about this).

Similarly, Fidelity charges what I consider an outrageous $75
per trade for the no-load funds which are not NTF funds
(ie. which do not pay the NTF fees to Fido). I do actually
own one fund which I bought in a Fidelity account for which
I paid that fee, but I'll probably never add to that position
while it's there. Eventually, I'll open another brokerage
account elsewhere and move those shares over there even as
I expect to keep the Fido account open. That particular
fund has an expense ratio of 0.52% and at that rate certainly
would have a very hard time paying Fido 25 or 35bp just to
print the statements.


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"Mark Freeland" <BnetOnewsX[at]sbcglobal.net> writes:

- quote -

That's not surprising -- the only reason NTF funds are NTF is because
they pay a bribe/kickback/service fee to the broker in order to be
included in that broker's NTF program. And where do you think the
the money to pay that comes from....?

This is why Vanguard funds are not in any NTF network that I
know of -- Vanguard refuses to pay the bribe/kickback/fee.

--
Rich Carreiro rlcarr[at]animato.arlington.ma.us

<BreadWithSpam[at]fractious.net> wrote in message
news:yobfyficj2g.fsf[at]panix3.panix.com...
- quote -

The post I was responding to recommended Fidelity for actively managed
funds, though you are right that this recommendation could be read to be
recommending Fidelity's NTF supermarket.

If is focused exclusively on NTF supermarkets (as opposed to in-house
funds), I might suggest Schwab over either of them - most NTF supermarkets
tend to offer mostly higher priced (higher expense ratio) funds; Schwab
seems a little better in this regard, and has a wider assortment of NTF
(OneSource) funds. It also offers the occassional load fund with no load,
NTF (e.g. Diamond Hill funds).

Here's a comparison of five brokers, including Fidelity and Schwab (July
2006). http://www.eons.com/money/feature/64...growthenestegg
With respect to NTF funds, it notes:

"Schwab offers the highst number of .. NTF funds ... with more than
2,000....

"Of the five online brokers, Fidelity offers the fewest funds ... and is
third in NTF's offered at 1,100+. "

A downside of Schwab for the OP is that its sweep account must be a lower
yielding bank account (Schwab Bank) unless one reaches a certain level of
assets (from memory - this info isn't on their web site). But, you can move
money into non-sweep Schwab MMFs, e.g. Schwab Value Advantage MMF, Investor
shares ($15K minimum for IRAs - fine for parking money), yielding 4.93%
(with fee waiver).
http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/..._money_markets

One might also look at Firstrade - no transaction fee for any of the funds
they offer, including Vanguard funds. (They still charge loads on the load
funds.) And no fees for IRAs. Firstrade appears to be what Scottrade used
to be (except it has lower commissions, lower margin rates, and no local
offices). I have zero experience with this brokerage.

http://www.kiplinger.com/personalfin..._brokers/6.htm
(July 2006 Kiplinger ranking of brokers by no load offerings - Firstrade
leading the pack, with Schwab just ahead of Fidelity among what one might
call the "first tier" of online brokers)

It all depends on what one considers most important.

Mark Freeland
BnetOnewsX[at]sbcglobal.net

"Mark Freeland" <BnetOnewsX[at]sbcglobal.net> writes:

- quote -

I don't think anyone here has specifically recommended Fidelity
*funds* over Vanguard ones (though they both have some winners
and some losers - including within the indexing sphere).
Fidelity, specifically Fidelity brokerage accounts, gives one
access to not only the vast array of Fidelity funds, but a
very large supermarket of no-load, no-transaction-fee funds
of all stripes.



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l0200100[at]yahoo.com writes:

- quote -

Those rates are close enought that I'd call it a non-issue.

- quote -

It depends on what you are planning on doing with the money.

Vanguard and Vanguard accounts are basically good for one
thing only - buying Vanguard funds.

If you're interested in other things - non-vanguard funds,
access to individual stocks and bonds, other brokerage
account services, you'll probably do a lot better with
the Fidelity account. In this context, the main downside
to the Fidelity account is that they do not let you buy
Vanguard funds without paying a (substantial) transaction fee.

- quote -

Where I keep mine is less relevant. Knowing what you plan
on *doing* with that account is the determining factor. If
you want to just buy a handful of Vanguard funds, you have
your answer.

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"Dave Dodson" <dave_and_darla[at]Juno.com> wrote in message
news:1156635134.423915.125080[at]m79g2000cwm.googlegroups.com...
- quote -

I'm always curious when people advise Fidelity over Vanguard for actively
managed funds. I look at Vanguard and see a family with lower cost funds,
usually better performing. At Fidelity, I see funds with frequent manager
changes, and a family hesitant to close funds when they grow too large.

None of this is intended to say that Fidelity is a bad fund family, just
that it could be doing better on a number of fronts.

Also, Vanguard's actively managed funds don't cost significantly more than
their index funds, maybe 1/4%, e.g. S&P 500 - VFINX, has expense ratio of
0.18%, and nearly all Vanguard's "general" domestic stock funds clock in at
0.43% or less.

For small IRA accounts, Fidelity will probably be cheaper, because they
don't charge for IRAs (Vanguard charges $10/fund/year for each fund under
$5K, but only if total household assets are under $50K).

As a brokerage, Fidelity is first rate, while Vanguard's brokerage is
primarily a convenience for its fund investors (i.e. okay for the occasional
equity trade, but not good for an active trader).

Bottom line - for funds, even actively managed funds, if I were starting out
fresh, I'd go with Vanguard rather than Fidelity. If I were primarily
interested in brokerage services, I'd go with Fidelity. But I'd look at
other options too, depending on what I expected to be doing.

P.S. I've worked with both Vanguard and Fidelity; they are both very good.

Mark Freeland
BnetOnewsX[at]sbcglobal.net

l0200100[at]yahoo.com wrote:
- quote -

I don't think that you could go wrong with either one. If you plan to
do more passive investing, through index funds, Vanguard would give you
more options. If you plan to use actively-managed funds, go with
Fidelity. I have been a Fidelity customer for 24 years, and can attest
that they give great servicel.

Dave

Hello All,

Right now, I can't decide between rolling over all my IRA assets to
Vanguard or Fidelity.

Once I move everything over, I plan on keeping everything in a money
market fund until I have time to carefully plan out my investments.

-Vanguard's Prime Money Market fund is yielding 5.10%
-Fidelity's money market fund is yielding 4.98%

Obviously, Vanguard has a better yield but for some reason I think that
Fidelity is a better place to have my IRA account. For some reason, I
think that fees and comissions at Fidelity are lower, and that I have a
wider selection of investment choices to pick from. Is this a safe
assumption?

What are your thoughts? Where would you keep your IRA? Thanks in
advance!!