Frankly many in the US are over the Trump administration and I expect a massive backlash in the midterms. Do what you want of course but I think the descent of the US is slowing and there will be a return to normalcy after this admin.
It's still the same population that voted for Trump twice. It's the same constitution, the same supreme court, the same parties, the same oligarchie and the same god-king like office of the US president.
Nothing will change with respect to trust after the midterms.
> Totalitarianism aside, I'm not sure about the stability either. Personally I suspect Xi Jinping's reign will end with some kind of bang, either an economic one or something relating to
Do you have any evidence that they’re subsidizing US customers? It’s possible the fees are higher in the UK due to it being more expensive to operate the funds.
Most of their funds are incorporated in Ireland (the UK doesn't have native ETFs, they're all European but can be listed on the LSE)
Investors in the UK are not partners in Vanguards mutual structure, and Vanguards UK platform ("Vanguard Investor") is not run by Vanguard but by a third party (FNZ, a New Zealand fintech).
OCF for VT, a global equity index ETF in the US, is 0.06%
UK equivalent (the Global All Cap Index Fund, or perhaps the VWRP All World ETF) is 0.23% and 0.19% respectively, and the latter excludes small caps and both have fewer holdings than VT
Invesco's All World ETF in the UK, tracking the same index is 0.15% and HSBC have an index fund tracking the same index also at 0.13%
Vanguard UK have a 0.15% platform fee whereas the best UK alternatives are completely free.
Vanguard UK recently introduced a minimum nominal platform fee on top which screwed over small investors.
Thanks. Are you sure the cost of the fund is higher because it’s a fund and not an ETF like VT? The platform fee seems strange, but I wonder if other companies collect that fee somewhere else?
There are no practical differences between funds and ETFs in the UK, except the fact that the latter are live quoted.
Mutual funds are cheap and have no tax disadvantages for us. In fact, outside of tax sheltered accounts, mutual funds are a lot easier to manage for tax purposes.
No, Vanguard just think it's fine to charge us 4x as much
Fees on my passive investments there (mostly target date funds) seem to be as low as ever? I don’t care if they offer _more_ options as long as it doesn’t negatively impact their passive business.
Fair point. My thought is they are clearly spending money on tons of people they wouldn't have to if they were strictly passive. Presumably, if they didn't, the fees would be lower than they are now.
Isn't it equally likely the opposite - your comment presumes that Vanguard is using money from passive to prop up active, whereas it could also be that money from active is already being used to lower fees on passive?
> And what happens if active fails? Then passive would take the hit
What specific concern do you have in mind? Are you aware that the corporate structure of Vanguard is that it is the funds who own the company, not the other way around?
That’s a risk that Vanguard investors in active funds are willing to take. They’re not stupid, investors at Vanguard know that passive is their primary focus. Also the fees for their active funds are lower than average so they have a higher likelihood of success since a lot of the drag on active performance is… high fees.
I mean even $100 annually compounds to be tens of thousands over a lifetime. Furthermore, Vanguard manages like almost 10 trillion so that ends up being nearly a billion extra extracted per year.
My main issue though is that Vanguard's brand is low-risk passive, but they are now selling high-risk active funds under that brand.
You aren't wrong that Vanguard seems more active friendly these days.
But Vanguard under Bogle always played both sides of the fence at least to some extent. They have always had that actively managed Windsor fund, right? And Wellington?
I think your article headline shows you have a fair bit more to learn about Bogle. Or at least you haven't made your case on that front. Bogle was at least as much about low cost and aligning interests of the investment client as he was about passive indexing, though he is known more for the latter.
Vanguard's brand is "retirement management company." If you were to ask the vast majority of people with their retirement accounts managed by Vanguard who Jack Bogle was very few would be able to answer.
Quibbling over one basis point in fees just doesn't feel valuable. Tracking error will be larger than this.
Personally, I find it refreshing that he’s one of the only ultra large CEOs that’s willing to go big or go broke. Otherwise, you end up with fossilized X trillion dollar company that amounts to a combination of safe haven/growth stock for retirement accounts and whose innovations amount to little more than finding pretty ways to machine different types of metal cases and who seemingly has entire research teams dedicated to discovering various new shades of grey every year. (This take isn’t fair to Apple, tbh, but they have gotten booooring under Tim Cook.)
What innovation has Meta made since Facebook itself done that’s been incremental to revenue? Instagram and WhatsApp are acquisitions. Facebook itself is fundamentally broken from an actual user perspective. Not to mention the real harm Facebook and Instagram do to kids.
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