Gyroscopic Investing

I hate the Bond Desk so much that I'm thinking about opening a taxable account in Fidelity just for buying short term treasurys. Is this a dumb idea?

I love Vanguard and have had a taxable account with them since I was born. Have a Roth there, too. I have a special kind of 401(K) in Fidelity.
I never thought I'd need anything else, but recently I've become interested in buying 2- and 3-year treasury notes instead of the SHY etf. Vanguard's Bond Desk is every bit as clunky as the treasury direct website. (Also, there appears to be a $10,000 minimum for each block of treasurys).  Fidelity is smooth when it comes to buying bonds directly.

Any thoughts?

dualstow wrote: I hate the Bond Desk so much that I'm thinking about opening a taxable account in Fidelity just for buying short term treasurys. Is this a dumb idea?

I love Vanguard and have had a taxable account with them since I was born. Have a Roth there, too. I have a special kind of 401(K) in Fidelity.
I never thought I'd need anything else, but recently I've become interested in buying 2- and 3-year treasury notes instead of the SHY etf. Vanguard's Bond Desk is every bit as clunky as the treasury direct website. (Also, there appears to be a $10,000 minimum for each block of treasurys).  Fidelity is smooth when it comes to buying bonds directly.

Any thoughts?

Well...I'm not so sure it matters if you buy your bonds with Fidelity or Vanguard.  I do, however, think it's a good idea for you to use another brokerage for something just to get some institutional diversity.  If you don't like the bond desk at Vanguard, I think this would be a good chance for you to diversify a little bit.

We've got 80% of our financial assets at Vanguard. I haven't even set up the bond desk there, but can totally imagine it being clunky so I'm in no rush. I love the ease of buying (and selling) bonds through Fidelity. I'm actually planning to sell the funds at Fido and use them just for bonds.

adam, alvin,

I also use Fidelity almost exclusively for bonds, not funds. My long bonds are in there, because it's a 401(k).
I had every intention of using Vanguard taxable for short treasurys since that's where my money is. More accounts = cash fragmentation with no clear way to "defrag". I dislike creating new accounts and having to keep cash in new sweep accounts. This is especially true now because I already have broker diversification.

Still, the freedom of being able to buy 5 or 8 treasury notes instead of a minimum of 10 will probably be worth it.

By the way, alvin, there's nothing really that you need to set up to use the Bond Desk. You just have to make sure your browser has the right settings -- see boglehead threads -- but you can trade from your existing brokerage account.

dualstow wrote: (Also, there appears to be a $10,000 minimum for each block of treasurys).

dualstow,

The $10K minimum is only for new issues purchased at auction.  On the secondary market you can buy in blocks of $1K.  In your Vanguard account, go to research funds and stocks, then find bonds and CD's, then select buy individual bonds, select a brokerage account and click continue, then under quick searches choose secondary treasury, select the duration of the bond you are looking for and you should see various offerings and the minimum amount to purchase which varies by seller.  I just checked and apparently the data is only available when the market is open.  All of this is certainly clunkier than at Fidelity, but not really that difficult if you want to diversify your bond holdings between brokers.

Very good to know, kobe, thanks!
I must admit, I've always used the auction (at Fidelity).
I think I'm now convinced to just stick with Vanguard for taxable and use the secondary market.

Thanks dualstow. It must be my browser settings because it didn't work for me and says I need to call to set it up. Since that was in my wife's account I didn't feel like calling and impersonating her. Maybe we'll try to get that working this week.

alvinroast wrote: Thanks dualstow. It must be my browser settings because it didn't work for me and says I need to call to set it up. Since that was in my wife's account I didn't feel like calling and impersonating her. Maybe we'll try to get that working this week.

I once wrote to Vanguard and asked, "Do I really need to call to buy bonds? Or even to set up bond buying?" I got a response telling me, If I recall correctly, to add something something BondDesk.com to my white list so that my browser would leave it alone. It didn't work, and I wrote back, perhaps just a tad abrasively, telling them that it did not, they called and politely helped me fix the situation. I still don't understand how blocking third party cookies brings up a message telling you to call. And, what I really don't understand is why it does not bring up a message explaining that you can fix all this intead of calling!  ??? Well, I put in that suggestion, but perhaps they don't feel anything needs to be done about.

Solution here, if you happen to be using Chrome for Mac. It's all in the first post: http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtop ... &p=1261810

I got it to work, but haven't actually bought anything yet. Today was really busy. I don't want to be market timing, but bonds took a hit today, so tomorrow might be the day to top out my portfolio.