Vanguard Fees

[MachineGhost]

Does anyone know if Vanguard charges the $20 annual maintenance fee on <$50K when buying non-stocks and non-ETF's?  It is not clear from the site.

[SteveGo]

877-662-7447

[Pointedstick]

A Vanguard Brokerage Services is fee-free unless you use it to invest in any non-Vanguard products.

[dualstow]

I found this:

How Vanguard keeps your costs low
No sales loads
No 12b-1 distribution or marketing fees
No commissions
No account service fees†

† No fees if you sign up to receive statements and other important documents electronically or if you're a Voyager, Voyager Select, or Flagship client. Otherwise, a $20 fee applies to each fund in an account with a balance of less than $10,000.

The above is from the "see how much you can save" link which in turn was on the mutual fund investing page.

[MachineGhost]

There seems to be contradictory information all over the place.  Ught.

[dualstow]

From the quote above, it seems like you'd have to have less than $10,000 in an account and insist on paper statements to incur the $20 fee.


EDIT: I won't change the line above because this post is too old to change. However, I meant to write fund and not account.

[MachineGhost]

From the quote above, it seems like you'd have to have less than $10,000 in an account and insist on paper statements to incur the $20 fee.

I think there is a diffeerence between the Vanguard Funds and the Brokerage Services.  In the former, theres a $20 annual fee per fund if you decline e-statements.  In the latter, theres a $20 fee per account if the balance is under $10K.

Unfortunately, Vanaguard charges $35 for NTF funds in the Brokerage Services, so they're out for me at the moment.  Seems like I've got to go direct and use ACH to and from to avoid fees (hopefully).

[MomTo2Boys]

Unfortunately, Vanaguard charges $35 for NTF funds in the Brokerage Services, so they're out for me at the moment.  Seems like I've got to go direct and use ACH to and from to avoid fees (hopefully).

I don't understand the above quote. Vanguard charges $35 for - what, exactly? What is an NTF fund in their Brokerage Services? 

[Pointedstick]

Unfortunately, Vanaguard charges $35 for NTF funds in the Brokerage Services, so they're out for me at the moment.  Seems like I've got to go direct and use ACH to and from to avoid fees (hopefully).

I don't understand the above quote. Vanguard charges $35 for - what, exactly? What is an NTF fund in their Brokerage Services? 

I think it's a No Transaction Fee fund. That said, I'm not sure what that means either. I have a VBS account that I purchase outside ETFs in and I don't get charged $35 commissions or yearly fees. All the Vanguard funds and ETFs are of course still fee-free.

[dualstow]

I think it's a No Transaction Fee fund.

From Investopedia:

Brokers are usually able to offer NTF mutual funds to their clients because the mutual fund companies that run the funds step in and compensate the brokers for their forgone commission fees. The typical arrangement is that the mutual fund company pays the brokerage firm marketing fees when an investor buys into the fund through a broker, instead of buying directly from the fund.

Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/ntf ... z24vqupAyq

[MachineGhost]

Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/ntf ... z24vqupAyq

Historically, brokerage transaction fees for mutual funds have been outrageous.  In fact, they still are at some places like Fidelity which charges a whopping $75 to buy or sell.  At this time, the lowest cost broker that I can find is optionsXpress which charges $15 to buy or sell.  The problem though is once you commit to a broker, there are capture costs they impose to keep you there, usually a $50 ACAT transfer out fee and a $50 closing fee.  So its usually a one shot deal since there are not that many quality brokers to choose from (rinky dink ones typically will credit you up to $100 to get you to transfer).  Being on the NTF list also pump up the total expense ratio to compensate for paying brokers.

The downside to holding direct with a mutual fund that don't have transaction fees is you won't normally get online banking support.  In this day and age, entering statements by hand ought to be anarchronistic!

[clacy]

Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/ntf ... z24vqupAyq

Historically, brokerage transaction fees for mutual funds have been outrageous.  In fact, they still are at some places like Fidelity which charges a whopping $75 to buy or sell.  At this time, the lowest cost broker that I can find is optionsXpress which charges $15 to buy or sell.  The problem though is once you commit to a broker, there are capture costs they impose to keep you there, usually a $50 ACAT transfer out fee and a $50 closing fee.  So its usually a one shot deal since there are not that many quality brokers to choose from (rinky dink ones typically will credit you up to $100 to get you to transfer).  Being on the NTF list also pump up the total expense ratio to compensate for paying brokers.

The downside to holding direct with a mutual fund that don't have transaction fees is you won't normally get online banking support.  In this day and age, entering statements by hand ought to be anarchronistic!

In addition to Vanguard, TDameritrade is an excellent firm (I have accounts with both).  They have 100 ETF's that are commission free (TLT,EDV,SPY,VTI,SHY and on and on...). 

If you feel safer investing in mutual funds, I would recommend Scottrade (I also have an account there).  They have an enormous list of No Fee mutual funds.  You will be able to trade stock mutual funds, LTT mutual funds and STT mutual funds with no commission easily (as well as PRPFX and hundreds of others). 

For both TDA and Scottrade, gold will be the only asset class that triggers a fee.

[Pointedstick]

+1 on TDAmeritrade. Though their fee is $10/trade, they have a huge accortment of actually useful commission-free ETFs. If anyone wants to open an account, clacy or I would love to give you a referral code that will let you trade anything (including gold ETFs) transaction-free for 60 days! 

[Xan]

There's just a little fine print with Ameritrade's commission-free ETFs.  First, you might think you can trade those ETFs for free, but the commission-free thing is a separate program you have to opt into.  Also, it's not for traders, and they enforce that by charging a large fee ($25?) if you sell any ETF that you buy within 30 days.  And that is LIFO!  Which means that the 30-day clock resets for each ETF any time you buy one share.

As long as you're aware of the terms, it's a great program.

[Pointedstick]

There's just a little fine print with Ameritrade's commission-free ETFs.  First, you might think you can trade those ETFs for free, but the commission-free thing is a separate program you have to opt into.  Also, it's not for traders, and they enforce that by charging a large fee ($25?) if you sell any ETF that you buy within 30 days.  And that is LIFO!  Which means that the 30-day clock resets for each ETF any time you buy one share.

As long as you're aware of the terms, it's a great program.

Right. You also need to opt into reinvesting dividends by calling them up, but none of that is particularly challenging to do. Also the "short-term trading" fee for commission-free ETFs is $19.99, Not that it should really matter for us PPers.

[MachineGhost]

St sounds like as far as trading a gold ETF for free, TDAmeritrade is the only option?

[Pointedstick]

St sounds like as far as trading a gold ETF for free, TDAmeritrade is the only option?

Yes, but only for the first 60 days. After that, you need to pay the normal commissions ($10). You can get everything else commission-free forever though as long as you stick to the vanguard and iShares ETFs they have available.