Vanguard Review 2011-2012: Commissions, Fees and Investment Products
- Stocks and ETFs: $7 for the first 25 trades, $20 for subsequent trades for account with less than $50,000
- $7 for account with $50,000–$500,000 (Voyager Services®)
- $2 for account with $500,000–$ 1 million (Voyager Select Services®)
- Free for first 25 trades, $2 for subsequent trades for account with $1 million (Flagship Services™)
- Options: $30 plus $1.50 per contract
- $8 + $1.50 per contract for accounts with over $1 million
- Mutual funds: Vanguard mutual funds - free. All others - Standard: $35; Voyager® and Voyager Select®: $20; Flagship®, $8
- Certificates of deposit (CDs): Purchase: $5 per $1,000, Minimum: $50. Sale: $35 per transaction
- Commercial paper: $50 per transaction; minimum purchase: $100,000
- U.S. Treasury: $0.75 per $1,000 face amount, $40 min–$75 max
- Mortgage-backed securities: $50 per transaction; GNMA minimum purchase: $25,000
- Investment products: stocks, options, mutual funds, bonds, CDs, foreign securities, insurance,
commercial paper, ETFs
- Minimum to open Vanguard account: $3,000
- All Vanguard fees
Vanguard mutual funds include a collection of 117 actively managed mutual funds, and over 150 U.S.,
exchange traded and International funds and financial portfolios. Vanguard's mutual funds focus on a number of
financial goals, risk levels, sectors and returns.
Vanguard Website (Vanguard.com)/Trading Tools, Platform Review
Vanguard trading tools are not keeping up with the industry. You can't modify your order: you have to cancel it then
resubmit it (!). Poor charts with no possibility of saving your indicators. Terrible research tools.
Really bad stock screener. Their website is not well-designed and it's hard to find information there.
Vanguard Brokerage Pros
- Low cost and good performance Vanguard mutual funds
- Free Vanguard ETFs
- Free dollar-cost-averaging transactions for no-fee mutual funds. $3 per transaction, minimum purchase $100, minimum two transactions, for transaction fee mutual funds.
- Free dividend reinvestment
- No ACAT fee
Vanguard Brokerage Cons
- Extremely high commissions for most people
- $20 annual maintenance fee for regular accounts with balance less than $50,000
- $10 monthly Low Balance Fee for accounts with $2,500 or less
- Terrible customer service
- Poor trading and research tools
- $3,000 minimum to open account
Vanguard Brokerage Review Summary
There is a reason Vanguard is known for its mutual funds and not for its brokerage services. High trading
commissions (unless you are rich), sloppy customer service, terrible trading and research tools make it hard for Vanguard to get any
recognition in the very competitive industry of online brokers.
Unlike most other brokerages, the company is charging $20 annual maintenance fee for regular accounts and $10 monthly (!)
"low-balance fee" for all accounts below $2,500 in balance.
There are no setup and annual fees for IRA accounts, but due to high commissions, the firm did not make it into our
Best Brokerages for IRA list.
One of the main advantages Vanguard offers, are their own ETFs that one could get for free. We also like free dividend
reinvestment and an ability to dollar-cost-average mutual funds investing.
The time of mutual funds is slowly but surely coming to the end. They are being replaced by low-cost and easy to
buy/sell Exchange Traded Funds (or ETFs). Even though Vanguard created its own ETFs, there are similar, well-known ETFs available
to everyone in every brokerage firm. We believe that the company will have hard time attracting new customers in this new environment.
Because of all the above reasons, we could recommend Vanguard only to people looking to invest exclusively in
Vanguard mutual funds and ETFs. For everybody else there are better Discount Brokerage Firms
to consider.
Vanguard
Reviewed by Brokerage Review on
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Rating: 3
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