Vanguard or Fidelity for Roth?

forgive me if this was covered before, i didn't see it in a search.


I need to open myself a Roth IRA and figure the easiest way to do it is to open at vanguard or fidelity and pick an index fund.

i'm 28, and have an IRA at work and mutual funds as well.

which do you recommend, which is easier, better, less costly? and is my plan good in your opinion??

Or open at Firstrade and get a choice of funds with zero cost.

if don't have i think 10k combined in Vanguard accounts, u will get hit 20 maintainence fees for each MF that you own. very misleading if you ask me...

kaiotes said: if don't have i think 10k combined in Vanguard accounts, u will get hit 20 maintainence fees for each MF that you own. very misleading if you ask me...since they are very clear regarding their fees, i fail to see how this is misleading.

great link intex45 thanks.

okay so i used the IRA Express feature on Vangaurd.com

it picked out the Target 2045 fund for me.

i figure it's a pretty solid + no brainer way to do it.

cost $3000 to start but i have wanted to do one for way too long and just haven't gotten it done so I think this will do well for me.

any other advice?

I'm a Vanguard guy myself.

Vanguard has the lowest cost, but their best fund (healthcare) requires a lot of $ to join. Vanguard can nickel and dime you with fee if you don't have the minimum balance. If you're are a set n forget type of investor, then Vanguard may the best in the long run. Once your individual fund exceeds $50K, you can join the Admiral tier for slightly lower expense ratio.

Fidelity has more quality MFs, but the management fee is a little higher. I find the traders to be quite informed about the general daily stuffs. If you tend to bounce from funds to funds to chase the market, or intend to trade stock agressively, then go with Fidelity.

I have both.

As far as starting small, it is hard to go wrong with a Sharebuilder.com account. It costs $4 for a scheduled trade. ~$16 for a market trade.

I have been with Fidelity for more than 10 years and i think they are one of the best brokerage houses around.

They have superior customer service (i don't know about vanguard because i have never had an account with them)

They have a very good website where one can do research for mutual funds, stocks, ETFs.

With IRAs, i strongly suggest ETFs because they are a lot less expensive than Mutual funds.

Also, how do you have an IRA at work? Do you mean 401k?

I have relationships with both companies. I prefer Vanguard because of their excellent customer service.

My entire family has switched to Vanguard over the last few years. My parents also rolled over their retirement savings to a Vanguard IRA and this allowed them to reach the Vanguard Voyager service since they had over $1 million in assets with Vanguard. Vanguard may have stopped this practice but the rest of the direct family members (grandmother, brothers and sister) were able to link their accounts to my parents account which gave each of us free access to the Vanguard Voyager service. One of the benefits from the Voyager service is that each of us gets 12 free stock trades per year. As mentioned previously the customer service at Vanguard has been excellent and the mutual fund fees are very reasonable. I hesitated for awhile before converting to Vanguard and finally realized that even with the $10 fees for the mutual funds that did not meet the annual $ threshold requirements, the expenses incurred with the Vanguard funds were less than my previous mutual fund provider. The fact that we were able to link the accounts tomy parents to obtain the Voyager service and obtain the free trades made it a no brainer. "Linking" the accounts to our parents account does not allow us to view our parents funds or our parents to view our funds, it just provides us with the free Voyager service because of our parents relationship with Vanguard. To tell you the truth I believe the fact that I was given complimentary Voyager service actually eliminated the $10 fees for the mutual funds that did not meet the annual $ threshold. I actually use Vanguard as my money market account as their rate is quite competitive and they seem to adjhust their rate fairly quickly when the Fed raises rates. Anyuway, I thought I would throw that out there in case anyone else might have parents that are with Vanguard so that they might be able to take advantage of the linkiing option. I also have Fidelity through a my employer's 401K plan and they have been really good too.

jonesle7 said: My entire family has switched to Vanguard over the last few years. My parents also rolled over their retirement savings to a Vanguard IRA and this allowed them to reach the Vanguard Voyager service since they had over $1 million in assets with Vanguard. Vanguard may have stopped this practice but the rest of the direct family members (grandmother, brothers and sister) were able to link their accounts to my parents account which gave each of us free access to the Vanguard Voyager service. One of the benefits from the Voyager service is that each of us gets 12 free stock trades per year. As mentioned previously the customer service at Vanguard has been excellent and the mutual fund fees are very reasonable. I hesitated for awhile before converting to Vanguard and finally realized that even with the $10 fees for the mutual funds that did not meet the annual $ threshold requirements, the expenses incurred with the Vanguard funds were less than my previous mutual fund provider. The fact that we were able to link the accounts tomy parents to obtain the Voyager service and obtain the free trades made it a no brainer. "Linking" the accounts to our parents account does not allow us to view our parents funds or our parents to view our funds, it just provides us with the free Voyager service because of our parents relationship with Vanguard. To tell you the truth I believe the fact that I was given complimentary Voyager service actually eliminated the $10 fees for the mutual funds that did not meet the annual $ threshold. I actually use Vanguard as my money market account as their rate is quite competitive and they seem to adjhust their rate fairly quickly when the Fed raises rates. Anyuway, I thought I would throw that out there in case anyone else might have parents that are with Vanguard so that they might be able to take advantage of the linkiing option. I also have Fidelity through a my employer's 401K plan and they have been really good too.

Voyager accounts are for those with $250k, not $1M, and they offer a 10% discount on trades, not free trades. Having that status does eliminate the account maintenance fees, though.

who gave me red? this has good info.

poo poo

note you must apply for an Advantage account with Vanguard brokerage to get the 12 free trades for Flagship clients. This account is not automatic upon attaining Flagship.

The Advantage account is also free for Flagship, plus you get to link your Vanguard money market account as your brokerage cash accountso you get free check writing in any amount, not just the usual $250 check minimum, with high interest rate, currently 5.11% for Prime MM.

Question: Didn't fidelity lower most of their expense ratios to match Vanguards on the index funds?

Also, I thought ETFs worked out to equivalent fees with funds. Is there really a difference between an S&P 500 fund and the ETF version?

Choice of Vanguard and Fidelity seems like 6 of one, half dozen of the other to me. Both are good firms, good reputations. And yes, they both make a ton of money so they're expenses in there somewhere.

Note that I only have fidelity and I'm a terribly inactive investor. I'm in the process of consolidating everything there so if I do move in the future it won't be so bad. That's three years in the making now.

I have both Vanguard and Fidelity. Vanguard is the market leader on index funds, extremely cost effective, and superior customer service. Everyone that I have ever spoken to at Vanguard seemed like they had been there for 20 years, and very knowlegeable, and super helpful.

With that being said, I have most of my money sitting at Fidelity. They too have superior customer service, and wide range of investment options. I noticed that they dropped my trading fee from 15.95 to 10.95 recently.

So, here's my advice, if you're interested in just opening up a Roth IRA, you might be better off with Vanguard. However, if you're looking for a one-stop shop, ( perhaps you will open up a self directed IRA) who can give you superior service at good prices, I would reccommend Fidelity.

atleats it your star fund was a positive move I bought a fund and it lost money the first day and the secound day it lost money again
Symbol Last Change % Change Volume Quantity Market Value Unit Cost Cost Gain/Loss
PRFDX 29.5500 -0.1200 -0.40 134.59 3,977.13 29.7199 4,000.00 -22.87

Most funds are up this year! The stock market has done well. The question is, how well did your fund do compared to the others?

Edit: Ooops. Was replying to an earlier post (the one from the guy who said "it was up $140"), didn't hit quote, and found out someone had said essentially the same thing.

Some folks have said, their funds have gone up such-and-such. That is irrelavent. If the domestic market is up, chances are your funds will too.

Both are very good, IMO. My wife has Vanguard, and I have Fidelity. I joined Fidelity b/c of exposure to them from a previous employer Raytheon, which btw is looming under a case action lawsuit. Cha ching, $$ from a settlement. Anyhow, I like some funds from Vanguard so I will buy though my wife, and vice versa, my wife likes Fido funds and I buy for her. The disadvantage to this is separated total household assets. Advantage, the best of both, sticking with the company itself instead of a third party broker. Although I do stocks on choicetrade.

I have Fidelity and a co-worker has Vanguard. You can't go wrong with either, but I think the Fidelity website is better. A lot more "banking" type options. I would have to rank Fidelity's customer service among the best I have dealt with. Always get someone fast, and they are always knowledgeable. Fidelity also has online chat for service, which I do not believe Vanguard has. They are still both safe choices.

your welcome Scooty It's been awhile since i did that (about 3 years ago) but i did recall that there is no fee to redeem shares when you buy other fund family mutual funds through fidelity brokerage...just the one time $75 transaction fee to buy...

If it is a NTF (No Transaction Fee) fund then there is no fee from fidelity at all....however, in that case, i think if you redeem early (like within 6 months) then Fidelity grabs the $75 when you redeem....but that only applies to the NTF funds that you buy outside of fidelity)...

Just wanted to clarify the two different situations with that...