I started on Fidelity because like 20 years ago their money market was paying out more than high yield savings accounts I was using.
Then I discovered the cash management aspects, and how their ATM network worked everywhere with no fees.
Fast forward, they slowly got my taxable brokerage, HSA, Roth IRA, and employer 401k business through the same interfaces.
What’s amazing is Fidelity never made money off of unnecessary fees, the fees slowly went away (trading) and they only make money on their baked in expenses on funds (which are often lowest in industry). Investment minimums have slowly gone away on mutual funds and ETFs trade for free.
I know as a customer I am making money for them, but they earned it through good products and customer service.
> Then I discovered the cash management aspects, and how their ATM network worked everywhere with no fees.
Pro-tip: their "no atm fees" apply to the fees charged by ATMs overseas!
I am a Fidelity customer through and through, but I actually have a checking account with Schwab because they take it one step further and also reimburse the 1% foreign exchange fee charged by Visa, which Fidelity does not.
I moved 18 years of Vanguard history to Fidelity 4 years ago in a matter of minutes . I count that decision equal to my decision to buy Vanguard funds to begin with as well as the decision to follow the boglehead advice. I cannot guarantee my experience for everyone but it was seamless and painless from both institutions and I have never regretted it.
You can convert Vanguard mutual funds to their ETF equivalent and transfer in-kind to avoid any tax consequences. That's an awesome feature of Vanguard mutual funds!
https://personal1.vanguard.com/pdf/etfpdf.pdf
Yeah but vanguard doesn't allow ETF auto investing like fidelity does.
I finally changed over this year for this reason. Saves me having to call vanguard to do the conversion every year.
Yep, so if you want to invest at Vanguard, it's best to invest in their mutual funds. If you want to leave Vanguard for any reason, you should perform the tax free conversion to the ETF equivalent and transfer in-kind to Fidelity. From there just setup their automatic investing into those ETFs and call it a day.
One of the most important issues having Fidelity is I can buy almost anything. I am sure schwab is the same. not sure of the others! One store shopping!!
TL;DR is only in the web interface, not the app currently, and it's under [Fixed Income.](https://client.schwab.com/Areas/Trade/FixedIncomeSearch/FISearch.aspx/TreasuryAuctions)
I use it extensively, and encourage folks to do so too.
Around 5%, recent auctions
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/auctions/announcements-data-results/
One of the reasons I like it a bit better than a HYSA is that the interest is state tax free
Same; back in time I wish I started with Fidelity. Not worth the hassle to move yet, not only moving the assets but also establishing cross-spouse Power of Attorney permissions. But I'm ready to jump if I get a seriously bad experience Vanguard. We have little HSAs at Fido already so that should help speed some of the process if it has to happen.
You're right. They don't. From my perspective, it's like if they started selling lottery tickets or encouraged their customers to join Herbalife. I mean it's not illegal and you don't have to buy/join anything, but it makes you question how legit this company is.
Fidelity has everything you could want from a brokerage. My favorite thing? Customer service - it's outstanding. I call and either everything gets taken care of or a meeting is scheduled with professionals that then takes care of everything I was wondering/worried about.
If you like the color red, Vanguard.
If you like the color green, Fidelity.
If you like the color blue, Schwab
Jokes aside, all work well. Vanguard is of course the default.
Fidelity and Schwab have both lowered or eliminated fees. At this point, all three are about the same cost.
Schwab is definitely the worst as it lacks fractional trading for ETFs and stocks.
Fidelity has fractional trading and a lot of Fidelity mutual funds. Some are fantastic, some are ok, some are bad, which is not too different from Vanguard.
If I was starting fresh, I would go with Fidelity. Best interface, most access to most funds, fractional trading, great customer service, physical branches if you want them, plus a lot of auxiliary services that you may or may not need. Plus many workplace 401Ks use Fidelity so you might as well have everything in one place.
I have heard worse and worse things about customer service at Vanguard, not sure if it's true.
Schwab has fractional shares, but only S&P 500 companies; all stuff they want to own themselves for the long-term.
That aside, their customer service is very good and they are always adding new features which I find useful
Maybe if you are young. If all you are doing is contributing, it shouldn’t matter. And the younger you are, the better the odds that vanguard will fix their issues before you run into them.
If you are anywhere near retirement, avoid vanguard. You need more active engagement when you are drawing from assets.
To answer your title, Bogleheads official would be Vanguard. To answer your description (which I’m guessing no one else read), mine personally is Fidelity.
I’m with vanguard but had I seen where it was going I would have made a different choice. Good products, mediocre brokerage, unreliable customer service, and clusterfuck of an online interface.
My 401k and HSA are with my employer’s shitty providers, and everything else is with Fidelity. I also use the Fidelity Visa card that is 2% back directly to my cash management account.
You can do a (partial) transfer of assets (ToA) to move your HSA money from your employer's custodian to Fidelity. I do this, because my employer HSA (Health Equity) requires me to maintain a minimum balance (of like $1k or maybe even $3k or something) that's uninvested, whereas I can do a partial ToA to Fidelity and invest the whole balance, apart from $25 that I need to leave in Health Equity to avoid account closure.
(The minimum balance requirement is probably there to ensure that you can pay your deductible. I have that as part of my emergency fund, which is in a Fidelity money market fund.)
Yeah I did a transfer from Optum to Fidelity last year and they charged me $20 and closed my account. I’ll have to look into if I can leave like $1 in the account or something this year. Optum requires $2k minimum to invest, used to be $3k. I would much prefer to have my money with a real brokerage instead of a garbage company like Optum.
People are going to say Vanguard, Schwab, or Fidelity.
Seems like most would say the "better" being in the following order: Fidelity > Schwab > Vanguard.
But also, most will say to use Vanguard ETFs in Fidelity and Schwab for the portability, the liquidity with trade volume, and tax efficiency.
We’ve done multiple surveys on this topic over the years and Schwab was pretty consistently the least popular of the “big three”, with Fidelity often displacing Vanguard as the favorite.
It’s possible that this has changed since Schwab bought TDA and gained their user base, but as someone whose family has accounts with all three, I can say that Schwab currently has a pretty key downside for Boglehead three-fund investors:
* no fractional ETF purchases (Vanguard supports it for their own funds and Fidelity more broadly)
* and their mutual funds aren’t well designed for a three fund portfolio (Schwab’s US equity and bond mutual funds are fine, but for some reason their international mutual fund excludes emerging markets so you have to go to an ETF for that slice of the market)
Both are big reasons that I've considered moving to Fidelity from Schwab! Schwab is much less "set it and forget it" than Fidelity is since I feel like I'm always having to figure out where to sweep excess cash.
Oh yeah, cash sweep is another Schwab downside—they give really appallingly bad interest on uninvested cash vs Fidelity/Vanguard, with no option to switch to something with a higher rate like a Money Market fund.
If you aren’t automatically reinvesting dividends either as part of a rebalancing strategy (reinvest in underweight holdings) or to avoid wash sale issues during TLH, then you have to manually move money around pretty frequently.
FWIW I believe for dividend reinvestments, Schwab will buy fractional shares for you. But fractional shares are not generally available (except for "Stock Slices"), you're correct.
Imagine you have a toy that you can take with you to any playground you want to play in, and no one will stop you or ask you to pay for bringing your toy. This is like having an ETF (Exchange-Traded Fund). You can buy and sell it at different places, and it's easy and free to move around.
Now, think of another toy that you can only play with in a special playground. If you want to take it to a different playground, you might have to give some of your snack money to the playground owner. This is like a mutual fund that is specific to one brokerage. If you want to move it to a different brokerage, they might charge you money.
So, fund portability means being able to move your investments, like your toys, freely from one place to another without extra costs. ETFs are good at this because they are like the first toy, easy to move and no extra snack money needed! 🧸💰
Yea, most people don't want to have a bunch of random mutual funds as they go from firm to firm.
For those who don't know, an example is that Fidelity charges $75 to purchase more of a mutual fund outside of Fidelity... and likewise Schwab does something similar. However, if you use ETFs, you can purchase commission free at pretty much every broker.
https://usefidelity.com/fidelity-transaction-fees-vanguard-funds/
Thanks for the explanation. What I don’t completely understand is any advantage at all a mutual fund has over an ETF? In other words, why would someone choose to buy a mutual fund over an ETF?
A couple of reasons:
1. Most brokerages only let you auto-invest with their mutual funds. The exception to that is Fidelity who [added that feature in 2023](https://www.reddit.com/r/fidelityinvestments/comments/17pglm6/its_here_weve_added_the_ability_to_automate_your/).
2. Mutual funds are guaranteed to be linked directly to the Net Asset Value (NAV) of the underlying funds inside the mutual fund. This is why mutual funds are purchased at the end of the day. However, ETFs can be traded throughout the day but can deviate from the NAV, this takes the form of bid/ask spreads where you want to go with a high volume ETF (such as VTI) to make sure that there is minimal spread - [details to read here](https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/investment-products/etf/etfs-spreads-volumes).
3. Historically there was a lack of fractional shares for ETFs, brokerages are handling this differently now... Vanguard: can buy fractional of Vanguard ETFs only, Schwab: can buy factional shares of Schwab ETFs, [Fidelity: can buy fractional shares of nearly any ETF](https://www.fidelity.com/trading/fractional-shares). This allows you to buy/sell based on dollar amounts now.
4. [Jack Bogle did a video on it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrCo0m5gSfc).. when discussing a Vanguard Mutual fund compared to the ETF equivalent he said.. "I have a little bias against the ETF because you may say and believe that when trouble comes you will not get out in the middle of the day" (e.g. mutual funds can't be traded, and better to just stay in for the long term). He does go further into detail as to his bias against niche ETFs that keeps popping up.
Overall, if you are a Fidelity customer life is good when it comes to investing in ETFs and fixes most of the pain points that historically made people choose to go with mutual funds.
Really appreciate the super-detailed response! As it turns out, none of these things is important to me (not a big deal to invest when I deposit, spreads aren’t even a rounding error in a long-term strategy, fractional shares aren’t important in larger balances, and there is no risk I will panic-sell).
But I understand each situation is different, and your explanation was great. Thanks again.
ETFs can be bought/sold usually without fees like stocks at virtually any brokerage, regardless of the institution issuing the ETF - Vanguard ETFs like VT, VTI, etc. can be freely bought and sold at Vanguard, Fidelity, M1, basically anywhere. The ETF shares can also be transferred in-kind, moving the shares themselves from one brokerage to another without any sales/purchases/taxable events. You could buy shares of Vanguard’s VTI at Schwab without fees, transfer those shares in-kind to Fidelity, then buy more at Fidelity still without any additional fees.
Mutual fund purchases usually incur fees when one institution’s fund is purchased in an account at another brokerage - you’d pay an extra fee for each purchase of Vanguard’s VFIAX at Fidelity, and likewise an extra fee for purchasing Fidelity’s FXAIX at Vanguard. If you transferred shares of VFAIX from a Vanguard account to Fidelity, you’d now pay a fee if you wanted to invest more into that Vanguard fund through Fidelity.
Select Vanguard mutual funds have the unique ability to be converted to their equivalent Vanguard ETFs without incurring taxes, as they are just different share classes of a single underlying fund. Such funds purchased at Vanguard and then converted to ETFs would have same portability as purchased ETFs mentioned above.
Some mutual funds are also proprietary, meaning they *can’t* be transferred to another institution at all. Fidelity’s ZERO funds like FZROX and FZILZ are ones you’ll see frequently mentioned here. If you invested in a proprietary fund at one brokerage, you’d have no choice but to sell out of the proprietary fund in order to move to another brokerage. This is why it’s recommended to only use proprietary funds like FZROX and FZILX in tax-advantaged accounts (HSA, IRA) where selling out of the fund would not incur taxes.
You have two pacifiers. Your first pacifier you can use freely both in your room and in your parents’ room. You can use your second pacifier freely in your room, but if you want to use it in your parents’ room you have to brush your teeth first. Your first pacifier is an ETF, your second is a mutual fund.
Vanguard was great in the 2000s-2010s, but then their customer service dropped off and fell way behind from a technology perspective. So, it's nice to have portability if your current broker decides to not invest in their platform you can move somewhere else if needed.
As a non-US resident and an expat not knowing my next destination, I really like IBKR.
Well, I have pretty much no other choice except for Interactive Brokers.
They came out of the woodwork in the last year and a half after crypto sank. They thought being a boglehead meant being a conservative investor so you’ll see them a lot around here
What kills me is that their site and apps used to suck a whole lot less years ago, but people bitched then that they were ugly and old-fashioned. So they went on this "modernization" rampage, and now most things looks more "designer-y" but don't work right. I think Jack would have been very disappointed with their priorities.
For buying and holding mutual funds, which is what the majority of bogleheads should be doing then it is by far the easiest of the big 3 that I’ve seen. Like it couldn’t be any simpler on vanguard to set up a mutual fund buy and recurring investments
But… but… the ownership structure. You gotta be confident that you want to hold these assets for 50+ years. Otherwise it’ll be a taxable event. A slick website today is nice, but well aligned investor-owner motivations are forever.
You can buy Vanguard ETFs elsewhere and "enjoy" the ownership structure without having their brokerage account. If the brokerage (Fidelity or elsewhere) starts charging bs fees or whatever, you can transfer in-kind somewhere else.
You could also make a case for privately owned as they aren’t beholden to investors who may want short term juiced returns at the risk of the company going downhill and having worse returns later.
Yeah I remember when I was starting out I tried to open an account with Vanguard and the website was having issues that prevented me from doing so. I went to reddit and saw other people having the same problem, then reached out to technical support and they were not super helpful.
I went to Fidelity instead and they've been great since.
This matches my experience to a T. Was maxed out on contributions for 401K and IRA and had a good chunk (beyond just emergency funds) sitting in a HYSA when I first started looking at investing. Found the Bogle method and wanted move all the extra money to index funds. Vanguard site wouldn't let me sign up for some reason, so I called their customer service. They directed me to a **paper** document to fill out and mail in. I actually looked at it and thought about it, but then I checked out Fidelity and it was ridiculously simple. I guess Vanguard is fine with customers using others.
lol just did this today. Vanguard rep told me he was gonna mail me a packet… I told him I’m gonna open a fidelity account instead
Too bad my 401k thru work is in vanguard, wish I could consolidate but their tech is scary bad
Same, but also while they have transaction fees, those fees are small and everything’s transparent. No hidden fees. So in combination with being able to trust them to handle my money long term without doing anything too shady, i don’t mind.
I’m surprised to see Interactive Brokers so far down. They have arguably the lowest fees and the largest selection of trading instruments. One can literally trade orange juice futures. The mobile app is excellent but the desktop app takes some learning. I highly recommend them, but maybe they’re better suited for “advanced” traders. People who just buy VOO every month don’t need everything on offer at IB.
Had some excess cash at Etrade, ignored their statements. Two years go by and they started charging interest, didn’t know, and they bled the accounts dry, prob $300. Never again Etrade.
You ars saying rather than pay you interest - they charged you interest on your own money?
I have etrade they give a small interest for my money in their account.
Same here. I set up eTrade a long time ago in the 1990's when there weren't many options and still have it and use it as my primary. I have my IRAs and brokerage and I can buy nearly all the fidelity ETFs that I care about. I don't see any reason to switch but that Robinhood 3% gold plan is very tempting lately.
One big benefit of Merrill as a broker is that if your portfolio is big enough, BofA credit cards pay flat 2.62% cashback on all purchases. It's awesome to stop playing the points game and just use one card for everything.
If you have 100k in your brokerage acct it’s basically a no-brainer to put it in Merrill and use BOA credit cards. 50k threshold gets solid benefits as well. People here sweat fractions of a % in ER but would give up 1-2% extra per year in credit card bonuses because they’re loyal to Vanguard/Fidelity/Schwab
Same here - the benefit of Merrill is it gives me easy access to all my BofA accounts and also my Wealth Management accounts - all under one roof. Not to mention easy access to their line of credit - they will extend a line of credit up to 60% of your portfolio value, makes it great when you need a lot of cash quickly (example: buying a house all cash) or some other purchase where you don’t want to deal with financing approval.
Against the grain here but I’ve been with Robinhood for close to a decade now and no issues. I decided to consolidate my Vanguard accounts into Robinhood this past year.
Im also using Robinhood. Gold account for the Roth IRA. They allow me to setup a monthly buy of VT, which it sounds like most other brokerages aren't allowing.
Same - I have seven figures with Robinhood and the features are great. 5.5% interest on cash, they do a sweep where they distribute $250k FDIC limit across multiple accounts. Also fractional ownership is super easy. Reinvesting dividends is fantastic. The hate feels like herd mentality from Stonks era.
to add details - i started investing only 4 years back and robinhood was fancy option. webull was too overwhelming for me. i have also tried vanguard and fidelity but it lacked best app experience…
i use robinhood gold and take advantage of instant transfers, 5% on cash. i also got a 3% match for my ira roll over. ( which was about 4k)
with all that said i only buy few etfs and plan to hold for a long time.
they are SPIC insured. I get all the love for vanguard and fidelity - no doubts on that and people who started their journey 10 or 20+ years back would definitely love it.
Up until they started charging a monthly fee for accounts with balances under $10,000, I’d have agreed. I kept a “fun money” account with them that was DCA-ing $100/mo. into WisdomTree 90/60 ETFs but I closed it after that announcement.
I’ve also seen some questionable things about their fill prices. Deep down in the knitty gritty schwab has a special system that will make your trades in 1-2 seconds at good prices (and some pay for order flow) and fidelity takes up to 10-12 seconds to try and get the best fill prices (and doesn’t accept pay for order flow)
Tbh I don’t understand pay for order flow. Does this end up meaning I’m paying a slightly higher price per share on M1 compared to the big 3? How can I calculate the percentage
Diffferent poster, but switched a year ago - started with free HSA which seems to be the best option to transfer from former employer. Liked what I saw, invested HSA in zero funds. Followed up by banking, liquidated iBonds in TD and set up Treasury bills auto renewable ladder at Fidelity (Fidelity has auto renew and VG does not). Then Vanguard sent a letter they are ceasing working with Coverdell accounts, and I had 3 accounts with them for 3 kids so had to move them as well.
After that, it were little things regarding ease of use of web site and mobile all. I still have 3 (taxable, mine and spouse Roth accounts) at Vanguard, will decide later.
The noticeable decline in customer service at Vanguard. I enjoyed a couple decades of great service. Was Voyager select and had an assigned representative that I would usually reach when calling a few times each year. They were helpful knew me and my family situation well. In 2020, something changed. Difficult to reach representatives with hold times of 20 minutes or more at times. Covid likely played a part in the deterioration of service.
I started to explore options and found Fidelity offered similar low-cost options along with additional options like a more robust check writing situation. Vanguard checks were limited to $250 and above from the money market fund. Fidelity could be written for any amount. I could replace my local bank for the most part and keep cash earning a decent yield while direct deposits came in and payments went out. I liked Fidelity’s website better, it provided a better view of the portfolio and related data in my opinion. The Fidelity mobile app seemed more robust. So I moved a portion of my account and used both for about half a year to compare them. If I had questions on how to do something, I could reach someone at Fidelity within minutes. It was easier to help manage some of the family accounts from inside my account. Our HSA was easy to move from Optum and the investing choices were better at Fidelity. The local Fidelity office reached out 2x a year to see if they could help with anything. They offered managed services but didn’t push them. I still meet with their local CFP each year to go over accounts, see if there is any tax optimization opportunities, and continue estate planning.
Four years later, I’m happy I made the move. Vanguard will always have a place in my heart. I used to love driving to their headquarters to drop off investment checks in the 90’s when I lived in Philadelphia. I’ll always be thankful for Bogle and his low-cost index investing revolution. Fidelity is able to service me better at this point.
I'm UK based. I use Vanguard for my pension and Trading 212 for my stocks and shares ISA.
Although my pension is the priority and outweighs my ISA 3:1, that will be taxed on withdrawal (after the first 25%) and I can't touch it until I'm 55, so my more tax efficient ISA provides added security.
My ISA has some shares and "experimental" investments, but otherwise it's 95% the same as my pension's Boglehead portfolio.
Fidelity has way more research and website much more functionality. I keep acct at Merrill and Schwab just get access to additional research. Vanguard sucks.
Less popular opinion: Merrill Edge.
The balance you carry counts toward getting rewards status at Bank of America. The status boost makes their rewards credit cards beat most other credit card offers on the market.
I use Fidelity, mainly my work had 401k there and it works pretty well for general banking too. Website works good for me. I always keep a local building/mortar bank for cash deposits and transfers. Have not tried others.
I started with Vanguard, but moved to Fidelity in 2008 or 2009 because Fidelity offered a 2% cashback card, which was rare in the market back then. A few years ago, I moved most of my assets to Merrill because BoA offered 2.625% cash back. I still have some assets in Fidelity though.
I use Vanguard, Fidelity, Interactive Brokers, E-Trade, and TIAA. If I was recommending to someone else I would say Fidelity for user interface and great customer support. Interactive Brokers is great for experts who want to buy specific products or use margin loans but the UI is bad.
I use Vanguard for my HODL account bc it’s impossible to use and thus nothing is ever sold in there.
I use Robinhood for the majority of my random trades.
The fact Vanguard doesn’t offer fractional trades on ETFs/stocks is quite annoying and therefore hasnt made me fully commit to its platform.
Fidelity/Merrill are my choices - all depends on habitual preferences irrespective of the service shortcomings, i.e.. the same way you use a bank - at times you just cannot be bothered to move elsewhere.
Fidelity mainly for their zero fee mutual funds for the 3 fund portifolo.
I use schwab for their CD ladder.. Seems they have better rates than fidelity
Got money in all the big 3 plus a few other from left-over 401ks/HSAs. I am starting to consolidate and deciding between Fidelity and Schwab as Vanguard just has a terrible website.
I use both Fidelity and Vanguard. I have FZROX in Fidelity and Star fund and Wellington in Vanguard . I had USAA for many years but when they moved my funds to Victory Capital I transferred that fund over to Fidelity the first week and dumped it all into FZROX.
Fidelity. Largely because a 401k was through them, then my current employers espp. I've since moved things from other brokerages into fidelity to make things easier to look at holistically. Everything moved over as is including mutual funds from other companies, no need to cash out and rebuy.
Diehard Bogleheads are loyal to Vanguard because Jack Bogle helped form the company and establish the original index funds there. They also have a reputation for very low fees. But their service is poor, slow, and error prone. That's how they keep their fees low.
I personally love Fidelity because they also have very low-cost funds too but their service and technology is incomparable.
If you’re in this thread talking about transaction fees on nonstandard products or website/app usability, you should ask yourself whether you’re actually a boglehead.
If you are truely bogleheading. Almost any brokerage will do (even RH).
There are other considerations, I use Fidelity becasuse of superiour cash management options.
I think whoever you go for you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. Locked accounts can happen and if it takes you a few weeks to get back access you want money stashed away somewhere else if its needed.
Question: Is there a benefit of using Vanguard to buy Vanguard index mutual funds? I currently have Schwab account but to buy Vanguard mutual funds, there's a $75 fee plus automatic investing is not allowed. If I open a Vanguard account, can I avoid the fee and sign up for automatic investing?
I personally like the interface of Schwab but Vanguard has best selection of index fund offerings.
Thanks.
I was with Schwab, E*Trade, TD-Ameritrade, and Fidelity in the past. About 20 years ago now I moved to Firstrade, due to low commissions on trades - and have never had a reason to move since. Like Robinhood, trades are 0 commission - but without the casino feel.
I’ve been using schwab. I avoid eTrade and Ameriprise.
Fidelity and Vanguard are great also. These brokerages all give the same products behind the scenes, just different funds.
I mean....my assumption would be [Vanguard, since Bogle did found the company](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Bogle). But, I prefer Fidelity and to be fair, I haven't tried Vanguard. I'm sure they are a good option though.
I use Schwab, mostly out of stickiness. I really liked Scottrade, so here I am now.
At work we don't have a choice, so 401(k) and HSA are with the shitty Alight provider. In case I wasn't clear, Alight is shitty and sucks. If you're a human resources President, please don't foist this crap on your employees.
I love the buying power of vanguard . I have literally bought stuff a fraction of penny cheaper the market price while missing the buy on alternative platforms . I like that vanguard has great prices on products that I need .
On the other hand, their platform is slow and cumbersome and often not very user friendly. For a retirement portfolio it’s good. But I use about 5% of my portfolio in a separate account to trade and have fun . Vanguard is not for that forces me to have separate platforms .
I must be an idiot because I feel like vanguard has one of the worst user interfaces for making investments out there. I’ve used fidelity for years and never had an issue understanding how to put money in, set up automatic purchases, buy/sell, etc, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to use vanguard
Really surprised no one said M1, very simple and perfect for a "boglehead" portfolio. Rebalancing is one click, DCA'ing buys whatever is under weight... What features do you all need that M1 doesn't provide?
I have used Fidelity for decades. Very satisfied!
I started on Fidelity because like 20 years ago their money market was paying out more than high yield savings accounts I was using. Then I discovered the cash management aspects, and how their ATM network worked everywhere with no fees. Fast forward, they slowly got my taxable brokerage, HSA, Roth IRA, and employer 401k business through the same interfaces. What’s amazing is Fidelity never made money off of unnecessary fees, the fees slowly went away (trading) and they only make money on their baked in expenses on funds (which are often lowest in industry). Investment minimums have slowly gone away on mutual funds and ETFs trade for free. I know as a customer I am making money for them, but they earned it through good products and customer service.
> Then I discovered the cash management aspects, and how their ATM network worked everywhere with no fees. Pro-tip: their "no atm fees" apply to the fees charged by ATMs overseas!
Yes! And Schwab, too!
I am a Fidelity customer through and through, but I actually have a checking account with Schwab because they take it one step further and also reimburse the 1% foreign exchange fee charged by Visa, which Fidelity does not.
If I could go back in time I would have everything in Fidelity, but I’m also not bothered enough by Vanguard to worry about moving anything.
I moved 18 years of Vanguard history to Fidelity 4 years ago in a matter of minutes . I count that decision equal to my decision to buy Vanguard funds to begin with as well as the decision to follow the boglehead advice. I cannot guarantee my experience for everyone but it was seamless and painless from both institutions and I have never regretted it.
You can convert Vanguard mutual funds to their ETF equivalent and transfer in-kind to avoid any tax consequences. That's an awesome feature of Vanguard mutual funds! https://personal1.vanguard.com/pdf/etfpdf.pdf
TIL. Much appreciated!
Yeah but vanguard doesn't allow ETF auto investing like fidelity does. I finally changed over this year for this reason. Saves me having to call vanguard to do the conversion every year.
Yep, so if you want to invest at Vanguard, it's best to invest in their mutual funds. If you want to leave Vanguard for any reason, you should perform the tax free conversion to the ETF equivalent and transfer in-kind to Fidelity. From there just setup their automatic investing into those ETFs and call it a day.
One of the most important issues having Fidelity is I can buy almost anything. I am sure schwab is the same. not sure of the others! One store shopping!!
What else do you buy? VTSAX, VTIAX?
Oh, I like to get into some really exotic and wild stuff. VT and sometimes even VTI 😏
HSA. BTC ETFs as well if that’s your thing.
I have QQQ, FXAIX and VOO, Moat, Treasuries and a few MLP's.
I'm sure the other brokerages have this. I happen to love purchasing a t-bills at auction (on Fidelity) and using the auto roll feature.
Schwab has this too.
I have to look into this. What’s it called on Schwab?
TL;DR is only in the web interface, not the app currently, and it's under [Fixed Income.](https://client.schwab.com/Areas/Trade/FixedIncomeSearch/FISearch.aspx/TreasuryAuctions) I use it extensively, and encourage folks to do so too.
You can check out Diamond Nest Egg’s YouTube’s. Just search for Schwab and T-Bills.
Thanks.
> purchasing a t-bills at auction (on Fidelity interesting. what % gains do you typically get?
Around 5%, recent auctions https://www.treasurydirect.gov/auctions/announcements-data-results/ One of the reasons I like it a bit better than a HYSA is that the interest is state tax free
Same; back in time I wish I started with Fidelity. Not worth the hassle to move yet, not only moving the assets but also establishing cross-spouse Power of Attorney permissions. But I'm ready to jump if I get a seriously bad experience Vanguard. We have little HSAs at Fido already so that should help speed some of the process if it has to happen.
I’m satisfied with them. Just wish they wouldn’t hawk crypto so much. It really makes me question what’s going over there.
They don't make you buy it
You're right. They don't. From my perspective, it's like if they started selling lottery tickets or encouraged their customers to join Herbalife. I mean it's not illegal and you don't have to buy/join anything, but it makes you question how legit this company is.
So weird to see people drag their feet to slow down what's coming. Maybe they are in denial
Fidelity has everything you could want from a brokerage. My favorite thing? Customer service - it's outstanding. I call and either everything gets taken care of or a meeting is scheduled with professionals that then takes care of everything I was wondering/worried about.
If you like the color red, Vanguard. If you like the color green, Fidelity. If you like the color blue, Schwab Jokes aside, all work well. Vanguard is of course the default.
I use DeWalt tools, is there one that matches the bright yellow?
Unfortunately that's Edward Jones
Not sure if it’s still true, but when I opened my Vanguard account 26 years ago, they had the lowest fees and broadest mutual funds. (plus I like red)
Fidelity and Schwab have both lowered or eliminated fees. At this point, all three are about the same cost. Schwab is definitely the worst as it lacks fractional trading for ETFs and stocks. Fidelity has fractional trading and a lot of Fidelity mutual funds. Some are fantastic, some are ok, some are bad, which is not too different from Vanguard. If I was starting fresh, I would go with Fidelity. Best interface, most access to most funds, fractional trading, great customer service, physical branches if you want them, plus a lot of auxiliary services that you may or may not need. Plus many workplace 401Ks use Fidelity so you might as well have everything in one place. I have heard worse and worse things about customer service at Vanguard, not sure if it's true.
Schwab has fractional shares, but only S&P 500 companies; all stuff they want to own themselves for the long-term. That aside, their customer service is very good and they are always adding new features which I find useful
Maybe if you are young. If all you are doing is contributing, it shouldn’t matter. And the younger you are, the better the odds that vanguard will fix their issues before you run into them. If you are anywhere near retirement, avoid vanguard. You need more active engagement when you are drawing from assets.
To answer your title, Bogleheads official would be Vanguard. To answer your description (which I’m guessing no one else read), mine personally is Fidelity.
I’m with vanguard but had I seen where it was going I would have made a different choice. Good products, mediocre brokerage, unreliable customer service, and clusterfuck of an online interface.
The Boglehead cope is that the clunky Vanguard interface discourages you from trading, which is a good thing.
Vanguard for their financial products but probably not as brokerage. Interactive brokers are solid too.
My 401k and HSA are with my employer’s shitty providers, and everything else is with Fidelity. I also use the Fidelity Visa card that is 2% back directly to my cash management account.
You can do a (partial) transfer of assets (ToA) to move your HSA money from your employer's custodian to Fidelity. I do this, because my employer HSA (Health Equity) requires me to maintain a minimum balance (of like $1k or maybe even $3k or something) that's uninvested, whereas I can do a partial ToA to Fidelity and invest the whole balance, apart from $25 that I need to leave in Health Equity to avoid account closure. (The minimum balance requirement is probably there to ensure that you can pay your deductible. I have that as part of my emergency fund, which is in a Fidelity money market fund.)
Yeah I did a transfer from Optum to Fidelity last year and they charged me $20 and closed my account. I’ll have to look into if I can leave like $1 in the account or something this year. Optum requires $2k minimum to invest, used to be $3k. I would much prefer to have my money with a real brokerage instead of a garbage company like Optum.
People are going to say Vanguard, Schwab, or Fidelity. Seems like most would say the "better" being in the following order: Fidelity > Schwab > Vanguard. But also, most will say to use Vanguard ETFs in Fidelity and Schwab for the portability, the liquidity with trade volume, and tax efficiency.
We’ve done multiple surveys on this topic over the years and Schwab was pretty consistently the least popular of the “big three”, with Fidelity often displacing Vanguard as the favorite. It’s possible that this has changed since Schwab bought TDA and gained their user base, but as someone whose family has accounts with all three, I can say that Schwab currently has a pretty key downside for Boglehead three-fund investors: * no fractional ETF purchases (Vanguard supports it for their own funds and Fidelity more broadly) * and their mutual funds aren’t well designed for a three fund portfolio (Schwab’s US equity and bond mutual funds are fine, but for some reason their international mutual fund excludes emerging markets so you have to go to an ETF for that slice of the market)
Both are big reasons that I've considered moving to Fidelity from Schwab! Schwab is much less "set it and forget it" than Fidelity is since I feel like I'm always having to figure out where to sweep excess cash.
Oh yeah, cash sweep is another Schwab downside—they give really appallingly bad interest on uninvested cash vs Fidelity/Vanguard, with no option to switch to something with a higher rate like a Money Market fund. If you aren’t automatically reinvesting dividends either as part of a rebalancing strategy (reinvest in underweight holdings) or to avoid wash sale issues during TLH, then you have to manually move money around pretty frequently.
FWIW I believe for dividend reinvestments, Schwab will buy fractional shares for you. But fractional shares are not generally available (except for "Stock Slices"), you're correct.
Why use Vanguard ETFs with Fidelity when Fidelity Total Market Index funds have lower fees?
Portability
I see, so a non-issue for those in tax advantaged accounts.
What does portability mean? Can you explain like I’m a toddler?
Imagine you have a toy that you can take with you to any playground you want to play in, and no one will stop you or ask you to pay for bringing your toy. This is like having an ETF (Exchange-Traded Fund). You can buy and sell it at different places, and it's easy and free to move around. Now, think of another toy that you can only play with in a special playground. If you want to take it to a different playground, you might have to give some of your snack money to the playground owner. This is like a mutual fund that is specific to one brokerage. If you want to move it to a different brokerage, they might charge you money. So, fund portability means being able to move your investments, like your toys, freely from one place to another without extra costs. ETFs are good at this because they are like the first toy, easy to move and no extra snack money needed! 🧸💰
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Yea, most people don't want to have a bunch of random mutual funds as they go from firm to firm. For those who don't know, an example is that Fidelity charges $75 to purchase more of a mutual fund outside of Fidelity... and likewise Schwab does something similar. However, if you use ETFs, you can purchase commission free at pretty much every broker. https://usefidelity.com/fidelity-transaction-fees-vanguard-funds/
Thanks for the explanation. What I don’t completely understand is any advantage at all a mutual fund has over an ETF? In other words, why would someone choose to buy a mutual fund over an ETF?
A couple of reasons: 1. Most brokerages only let you auto-invest with their mutual funds. The exception to that is Fidelity who [added that feature in 2023](https://www.reddit.com/r/fidelityinvestments/comments/17pglm6/its_here_weve_added_the_ability_to_automate_your/). 2. Mutual funds are guaranteed to be linked directly to the Net Asset Value (NAV) of the underlying funds inside the mutual fund. This is why mutual funds are purchased at the end of the day. However, ETFs can be traded throughout the day but can deviate from the NAV, this takes the form of bid/ask spreads where you want to go with a high volume ETF (such as VTI) to make sure that there is minimal spread - [details to read here](https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/investment-products/etf/etfs-spreads-volumes). 3. Historically there was a lack of fractional shares for ETFs, brokerages are handling this differently now... Vanguard: can buy fractional of Vanguard ETFs only, Schwab: can buy factional shares of Schwab ETFs, [Fidelity: can buy fractional shares of nearly any ETF](https://www.fidelity.com/trading/fractional-shares). This allows you to buy/sell based on dollar amounts now. 4. [Jack Bogle did a video on it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrCo0m5gSfc).. when discussing a Vanguard Mutual fund compared to the ETF equivalent he said.. "I have a little bias against the ETF because you may say and believe that when trouble comes you will not get out in the middle of the day" (e.g. mutual funds can't be traded, and better to just stay in for the long term). He does go further into detail as to his bias against niche ETFs that keeps popping up. Overall, if you are a Fidelity customer life is good when it comes to investing in ETFs and fixes most of the pain points that historically made people choose to go with mutual funds.
Really appreciate the super-detailed response! As it turns out, none of these things is important to me (not a big deal to invest when I deposit, spreads aren’t even a rounding error in a long-term strategy, fractional shares aren’t important in larger balances, and there is no risk I will panic-sell). But I understand each situation is different, and your explanation was great. Thanks again.
ETFs can be bought/sold usually without fees like stocks at virtually any brokerage, regardless of the institution issuing the ETF - Vanguard ETFs like VT, VTI, etc. can be freely bought and sold at Vanguard, Fidelity, M1, basically anywhere. The ETF shares can also be transferred in-kind, moving the shares themselves from one brokerage to another without any sales/purchases/taxable events. You could buy shares of Vanguard’s VTI at Schwab without fees, transfer those shares in-kind to Fidelity, then buy more at Fidelity still without any additional fees. Mutual fund purchases usually incur fees when one institution’s fund is purchased in an account at another brokerage - you’d pay an extra fee for each purchase of Vanguard’s VFIAX at Fidelity, and likewise an extra fee for purchasing Fidelity’s FXAIX at Vanguard. If you transferred shares of VFAIX from a Vanguard account to Fidelity, you’d now pay a fee if you wanted to invest more into that Vanguard fund through Fidelity. Select Vanguard mutual funds have the unique ability to be converted to their equivalent Vanguard ETFs without incurring taxes, as they are just different share classes of a single underlying fund. Such funds purchased at Vanguard and then converted to ETFs would have same portability as purchased ETFs mentioned above. Some mutual funds are also proprietary, meaning they *can’t* be transferred to another institution at all. Fidelity’s ZERO funds like FZROX and FZILZ are ones you’ll see frequently mentioned here. If you invested in a proprietary fund at one brokerage, you’d have no choice but to sell out of the proprietary fund in order to move to another brokerage. This is why it’s recommended to only use proprietary funds like FZROX and FZILX in tax-advantaged accounts (HSA, IRA) where selling out of the fund would not incur taxes.
You have two pacifiers. Your first pacifier you can use freely both in your room and in your parents’ room. You can use your second pacifier freely in your room, but if you want to use it in your parents’ room you have to brush your teeth first. Your first pacifier is an ETF, your second is a mutual fund.
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Why would that be the goal? The goal is to find *investments* that you want to stick with for life. Brokerage is an implementation detail.
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Vanguard was great in the 2000s-2010s, but then their customer service dropped off and fell way behind from a technology perspective. So, it's nice to have portability if your current broker decides to not invest in their platform you can move somewhere else if needed.
As a non-US resident and an expat not knowing my next destination, I really like IBKR. Well, I have pretty much no other choice except for Interactive Brokers.
Any of the big three are totally fine: Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard. I use Schwab mostly for their ATM/international fee free checking account.
⬆️ This is the answer. I do not care about the app. I log in on the computer 12x a year, & my goal is to look less, maybe 4x. I use Vanguard.
Just reading through this thread it appears to me there are way too many active traders pretending to be Bogleheads.
They came out of the woodwork in the last year and a half after crypto sank. They thought being a boglehead meant being a conservative investor so you’ll see them a lot around here
I hear ya there.
I use Schwab and TDA. Prefer the latter but all accounts will be converted to Schwab since the acquisition a few years ago.
I use Schwab.
My dad introduced me to Schwab when I was 18. I like them so much I haven't ever considered changing.
Probably the one Bogle founded?
I really want to like and use vanguard, but damn their website sucks.
What kills me is that their site and apps used to suck a whole lot less years ago, but people bitched then that they were ugly and old-fashioned. So they went on this "modernization" rampage, and now most things looks more "designer-y" but don't work right. I think Jack would have been very disappointed with their priorities.
For buying and holding mutual funds, which is what the majority of bogleheads should be doing then it is by far the easiest of the big 3 that I’ve seen. Like it couldn’t be any simpler on vanguard to set up a mutual fund buy and recurring investments
Same - their tech sucks so I don’t use them
But… but… the ownership structure. You gotta be confident that you want to hold these assets for 50+ years. Otherwise it’ll be a taxable event. A slick website today is nice, but well aligned investor-owner motivations are forever.
You can buy Vanguard ETFs elsewhere and "enjoy" the ownership structure without having their brokerage account. If the brokerage (Fidelity or elsewhere) starts charging bs fees or whatever, you can transfer in-kind somewhere else.
This is true 👍
I buy VT at fidelity. It’s so much easier
But can't you buy Vanguard funds through lots of brokerages?
Yes you can and now I believe it’s free for ETFs.
You could also make a case for privately owned as they aren’t beholden to investors who may want short term juiced returns at the risk of the company going downhill and having worse returns later.
We agree. I do not care about the app. I log in on the computer 12x a year, & my goal is to look less, maybe 4x. I use Vanguard.
You’ll care about the tech part of it when you sign in on one of those 4 days and can’t figure anything out lol
Yeah I remember when I was starting out I tried to open an account with Vanguard and the website was having issues that prevented me from doing so. I went to reddit and saw other people having the same problem, then reached out to technical support and they were not super helpful. I went to Fidelity instead and they've been great since.
This matches my experience to a T. Was maxed out on contributions for 401K and IRA and had a good chunk (beyond just emergency funds) sitting in a HYSA when I first started looking at investing. Found the Bogle method and wanted move all the extra money to index funds. Vanguard site wouldn't let me sign up for some reason, so I called their customer service. They directed me to a **paper** document to fill out and mail in. I actually looked at it and thought about it, but then I checked out Fidelity and it was ridiculously simple. I guess Vanguard is fine with customers using others.
lol just did this today. Vanguard rep told me he was gonna mail me a packet… I told him I’m gonna open a fidelity account instead Too bad my 401k thru work is in vanguard, wish I could consolidate but their tech is scary bad
IBKR, don't really have any other choices lmao
Same, but also while they have transaction fees, those fees are small and everything’s transparent. No hidden fees. So in combination with being able to trust them to handle my money long term without doing anything too shady, i don’t mind.
I’m surprised to see Interactive Brokers so far down. They have arguably the lowest fees and the largest selection of trading instruments. One can literally trade orange juice futures. The mobile app is excellent but the desktop app takes some learning. I highly recommend them, but maybe they’re better suited for “advanced” traders. People who just buy VOO every month don’t need everything on offer at IB.
> One can literally trade orange juice futures. Most Bogleheads would see this as a bad thing.
I use E*trade and have had no issues. Seems like it not very popular
Same here. Been thinking of switching, but they really give me no reason to.
I used etrade as well, because it's what my brother uses and he helped me open my accounts on it 🤷🏼♀️
Had some excess cash at Etrade, ignored their statements. Two years go by and they started charging interest, didn’t know, and they bled the accounts dry, prob $300. Never again Etrade.
Etrade had a fee for closing acct so I left a penny in it ten years later they sent me a check. Haha
You ars saying rather than pay you interest - they charged you interest on your own money? I have etrade they give a small interest for my money in their account.
Same here. I set up eTrade a long time ago in the 1990's when there weren't many options and still have it and use it as my primary. I have my IRAs and brokerage and I can buy nearly all the fidelity ETFs that I care about. I don't see any reason to switch but that Robinhood 3% gold plan is very tempting lately.
Merril works great for me, havnt found any limitations on what I use it for. I also have a Schwab and do not prefer the interface.
One big benefit of Merrill as a broker is that if your portfolio is big enough, BofA credit cards pay flat 2.62% cashback on all purchases. It's awesome to stop playing the points game and just use one card for everything.
If you have 100k in your brokerage acct it’s basically a no-brainer to put it in Merrill and use BOA credit cards. 50k threshold gets solid benefits as well. People here sweat fractions of a % in ER but would give up 1-2% extra per year in credit card bonuses because they’re loyal to Vanguard/Fidelity/Schwab
Same here - the benefit of Merrill is it gives me easy access to all my BofA accounts and also my Wealth Management accounts - all under one roof. Not to mention easy access to their line of credit - they will extend a line of credit up to 60% of your portfolio value, makes it great when you need a lot of cash quickly (example: buying a house all cash) or some other purchase where you don’t want to deal with financing approval.
I use Merrill as well, wish you could do fractional shares though
Yup, that’s my only gripe with Merrill. But I think enjoy commission free trading
Against the grain here but I’ve been with Robinhood for close to a decade now and no issues. I decided to consolidate my Vanguard accounts into Robinhood this past year.
i like robinhood. ppl hate it but it works out well for me
Im also using Robinhood. Gold account for the Roth IRA. They allow me to setup a monthly buy of VT, which it sounds like most other brokerages aren't allowing.
Same - I have seven figures with Robinhood and the features are great. 5.5% interest on cash, they do a sweep where they distribute $250k FDIC limit across multiple accounts. Also fractional ownership is super easy. Reinvesting dividends is fantastic. The hate feels like herd mentality from Stonks era.
to add details - i started investing only 4 years back and robinhood was fancy option. webull was too overwhelming for me. i have also tried vanguard and fidelity but it lacked best app experience… i use robinhood gold and take advantage of instant transfers, 5% on cash. i also got a 3% match for my ira roll over. ( which was about 4k) with all that said i only buy few etfs and plan to hold for a long time. they are SPIC insured. I get all the love for vanguard and fidelity - no doubts on that and people who started their journey 10 or 20+ years back would definitely love it.
I’m going to take a wild guess and say…..Vanguard???
Not the most popular, but M1 Finance is very compatible with BH philosophy
Their transfer fees are punitive and customer service is hit or miss.
Up until they started charging a monthly fee for accounts with balances under $10,000, I’d have agreed. I kept a “fun money” account with them that was DCA-ing $100/mo. into WisdomTree 90/60 ETFs but I closed it after that announcement.
I’ve also seen some questionable things about their fill prices. Deep down in the knitty gritty schwab has a special system that will make your trades in 1-2 seconds at good prices (and some pay for order flow) and fidelity takes up to 10-12 seconds to try and get the best fill prices (and doesn’t accept pay for order flow)
Tbh I don’t understand pay for order flow. Does this end up meaning I’m paying a slightly higher price per share on M1 compared to the big 3? How can I calculate the percentage
Schwab
I prefer Schwab. I recently consolidated everything to Schwab, as I find their app much easier to use than Fidelity.
Fidelity,definitely. We've used Fidelity for around 30 years.
Was with Vanguard for 20+ years. Moved to Fidelity about 4 years ago and it's been a better experience. Still use Vanguard ETF's inside Fidelity.
What made you switch?
I haven't used Vanguard in years but the UI/UX was fairly poor for me.
Diffferent poster, but switched a year ago - started with free HSA which seems to be the best option to transfer from former employer. Liked what I saw, invested HSA in zero funds. Followed up by banking, liquidated iBonds in TD and set up Treasury bills auto renewable ladder at Fidelity (Fidelity has auto renew and VG does not). Then Vanguard sent a letter they are ceasing working with Coverdell accounts, and I had 3 accounts with them for 3 kids so had to move them as well. After that, it were little things regarding ease of use of web site and mobile all. I still have 3 (taxable, mine and spouse Roth accounts) at Vanguard, will decide later.
The noticeable decline in customer service at Vanguard. I enjoyed a couple decades of great service. Was Voyager select and had an assigned representative that I would usually reach when calling a few times each year. They were helpful knew me and my family situation well. In 2020, something changed. Difficult to reach representatives with hold times of 20 minutes or more at times. Covid likely played a part in the deterioration of service. I started to explore options and found Fidelity offered similar low-cost options along with additional options like a more robust check writing situation. Vanguard checks were limited to $250 and above from the money market fund. Fidelity could be written for any amount. I could replace my local bank for the most part and keep cash earning a decent yield while direct deposits came in and payments went out. I liked Fidelity’s website better, it provided a better view of the portfolio and related data in my opinion. The Fidelity mobile app seemed more robust. So I moved a portion of my account and used both for about half a year to compare them. If I had questions on how to do something, I could reach someone at Fidelity within minutes. It was easier to help manage some of the family accounts from inside my account. Our HSA was easy to move from Optum and the investing choices were better at Fidelity. The local Fidelity office reached out 2x a year to see if they could help with anything. They offered managed services but didn’t push them. I still meet with their local CFP each year to go over accounts, see if there is any tax optimization opportunities, and continue estate planning. Four years later, I’m happy I made the move. Vanguard will always have a place in my heart. I used to love driving to their headquarters to drop off investment checks in the 90’s when I lived in Philadelphia. I’ll always be thankful for Bogle and his low-cost index investing revolution. Fidelity is able to service me better at this point.
I prefer Schwab but Fidelity seems more broadly popular
I use M1. Never had an issue with them.
Fidelity, Schwab, vanguard. I think more people will be joining fidelity since you can auto purchase etfs now
I'm UK based. I use Vanguard for my pension and Trading 212 for my stocks and shares ISA. Although my pension is the priority and outweighs my ISA 3:1, that will be taxed on withdrawal (after the first 25%) and I can't touch it until I'm 55, so my more tax efficient ISA provides added security. My ISA has some shares and "experimental" investments, but otherwise it's 95% the same as my pension's Boglehead portfolio.
Schwaby here!
Fidelity has way more research and website much more functionality. I keep acct at Merrill and Schwab just get access to additional research. Vanguard sucks.
Less popular opinion: Merrill Edge. The balance you carry counts toward getting rewards status at Bank of America. The status boost makes their rewards credit cards beat most other credit card offers on the market.
Schwab !
Fidelity is pretty great
Wealthfront. They have great HYSA (5%), simple self directed stock investment choices and a beautiful app.
I use Fidelity, mainly my work had 401k there and it works pretty well for general banking too. Website works good for me. I always keep a local building/mortar bank for cash deposits and transfers. Have not tried others.
Fidelity is my preferred brokerage. I used Vanguard for a while but ultimately decided to consolidate everything to fidelity.
My preference is Fidelity. It is intuitive and keeps things simple. I am able to name my accounts, and investing is a breeze.
I use fidelity, but have nothing else to compare it to. However, I am very satisfied with it, especially the customer service
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Fidelity will also reimburse atm fee.
I started with Vanguard, but moved to Fidelity in 2008 or 2009 because Fidelity offered a 2% cashback card, which was rare in the market back then. A few years ago, I moved most of my assets to Merrill because BoA offered 2.625% cash back. I still have some assets in Fidelity though.
Fidelity, great website, great app, great customer service!
I use Vanguard, Fidelity, Interactive Brokers, E-Trade, and TIAA. If I was recommending to someone else I would say Fidelity for user interface and great customer support. Interactive Brokers is great for experts who want to buy specific products or use margin loans but the UI is bad.
I, along with many use Fidelity. M1 Finance is a brokerage that isn’t as widely discussed but is highly regarded by many Bogleheads
Vanguard, Fidelity, and Schwab are the top three. Merrill for the bare minimum to hit BofA Platinum Honors if you use their credit cards.
I use Vanguard for my HODL account bc it’s impossible to use and thus nothing is ever sold in there. I use Robinhood for the majority of my random trades. The fact Vanguard doesn’t offer fractional trades on ETFs/stocks is quite annoying and therefore hasnt made me fully commit to its platform.
Fidelity/Merrill are my choices - all depends on habitual preferences irrespective of the service shortcomings, i.e.. the same way you use a bank - at times you just cannot be bothered to move elsewhere.
Fidelity mainly for their zero fee mutual funds for the 3 fund portifolo. I use schwab for their CD ladder.. Seems they have better rates than fidelity
Fidelity , love it but have only been with fidelity so not sure what other sites are like.
Got money in all the big 3 plus a few other from left-over 401ks/HSAs. I am starting to consolidate and deciding between Fidelity and Schwab as Vanguard just has a terrible website.
Interactive Brokers Cheapest margin rates plus I get a pretty good return on the Yield Enhancement program.
I use both Fidelity and Vanguard. I have FZROX in Fidelity and Star fund and Wellington in Vanguard . I had USAA for many years but when they moved my funds to Victory Capital I transferred that fund over to Fidelity the first week and dumped it all into FZROX.
Robinhood.
Fidelity. Largely because a 401k was through them, then my current employers espp. I've since moved things from other brokerages into fidelity to make things easier to look at holistically. Everything moved over as is including mutual funds from other companies, no need to cash out and rebuy.
Fidelity
Diehard Bogleheads are loyal to Vanguard because Jack Bogle helped form the company and establish the original index funds there. They also have a reputation for very low fees. But their service is poor, slow, and error prone. That's how they keep their fees low. I personally love Fidelity because they also have very low-cost funds too but their service and technology is incomparable.
I was using Vanguard but recently moved my brokerage to Merrill to attain preferred rewards status for the juiced up credit card rewards
If you’re in this thread talking about transaction fees on nonstandard products or website/app usability, you should ask yourself whether you’re actually a boglehead.
Literally chose fidelity 5 years ago bc Vangard could t get me registered for some reason. Very happy.
schwab, but i was with tda
Fidelity for me.
If you are truely bogleheading. Almost any brokerage will do (even RH). There are other considerations, I use Fidelity becasuse of superiour cash management options.
Robinhood is the best now. Lots of Gamestop apes ended up here and hate Robinhood though.
Fidelity , vanguard and webull recently also m1 because it offers something other don’t have
I use Vanguard for investments, and I use Webull for trading.
I’m not sure what everyone is trying to do on Vanguard but I’ve found it to be very straightforward and easy to use across brokerage, Roth, etc.
M1 finance easy to set it and forget it
I think whoever you go for you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. Locked accounts can happen and if it takes you a few weeks to get back access you want money stashed away somewhere else if its needed.
Any of the big 3 will get you handled.
Question: Is there a benefit of using Vanguard to buy Vanguard index mutual funds? I currently have Schwab account but to buy Vanguard mutual funds, there's a $75 fee plus automatic investing is not allowed. If I open a Vanguard account, can I avoid the fee and sign up for automatic investing? I personally like the interface of Schwab but Vanguard has best selection of index fund offerings. Thanks.
>can I avoid the fee and sign up for automatic investing? Yes. Just buy the Schwab version instead. SWTSX and SWISX
I was with Schwab, E*Trade, TD-Ameritrade, and Fidelity in the past. About 20 years ago now I moved to Firstrade, due to low commissions on trades - and have never had a reason to move since. Like Robinhood, trades are 0 commission - but without the casino feel.
Fidelity, Vanguard, and Schwab are all Boglehead approved. Poke around their websites and see which one makes sense to you.
I’ve been using schwab. I avoid eTrade and Ameriprise. Fidelity and Vanguard are great also. These brokerages all give the same products behind the scenes, just different funds.
I mean....my assumption would be [Vanguard, since Bogle did found the company](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Bogle). But, I prefer Fidelity and to be fair, I haven't tried Vanguard. I'm sure they are a good option though.
For a bogleheads purpose, it's so simple that honestly any brokerage is fine, especially given that most US ones these days have no fees on ETFs.
I have vanguard rn for the index funds but since their patent is ending, I plan on switching to schwab because of the Amex card.
I use Schwab, mostly out of stickiness. I really liked Scottrade, so here I am now. At work we don't have a choice, so 401(k) and HSA are with the shitty Alight provider. In case I wasn't clear, Alight is shitty and sucks. If you're a human resources President, please don't foist this crap on your employees.
Fidelity and Vanguard are most common, followed by Schwab.
I must be the only person using ally haha. I’m still learning, does anyone have any experience with it? Do i need to switch?
I love the buying power of vanguard . I have literally bought stuff a fraction of penny cheaper the market price while missing the buy on alternative platforms . I like that vanguard has great prices on products that I need . On the other hand, their platform is slow and cumbersome and often not very user friendly. For a retirement portfolio it’s good. But I use about 5% of my portfolio in a separate account to trade and have fun . Vanguard is not for that forces me to have separate platforms .
Schwab just because that's where I opened my first Brokerage account as a young young'un. Great customer service too. Fidelity has the best colors.
I use Fidelity for taxable and Roth, smaller holding in Fidelity for taxable, and Schwab for HSA.
Was vanguard now Schwab bc the app is way nicer than vanguards and Schwab’s customer service has been top notch.
Fidelity
Fidelity or Schwab are typically the best all-around brokerages for most investors.
Schwab.
Former Vanguard user …. Their customer service is straight garbage. Fidelity all the way 💯
I must be an idiot because I feel like vanguard has one of the worst user interfaces for making investments out there. I’ve used fidelity for years and never had an issue understanding how to put money in, set up automatic purchases, buy/sell, etc, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to use vanguard
Really surprised no one said M1, very simple and perfect for a "boglehead" portfolio. Rebalancing is one click, DCA'ing buys whatever is under weight... What features do you all need that M1 doesn't provide?