Vanguard email about moving to a brokerage account

[disneysteve]

Has anyone else gotten the email from Vanguard inviting you to move from a mutual fund account to a brokerage account?

We invite you to transition your Vanguard mutual fund account to the Vanguard Brokerage Account—a simple, more flexible way to manage all your investments in the same account. When you make the move, you'll gain:
• A wider range of investment choices, including not only Vanguard mutual funds but also ETFs (exchange-traded funds), stocks, bonds, and CDs (certificates of deposit).
• Fast, commission-free transactions for all Vanguard mutual funds and ETFs.*
• The ability to easily cancel transactions, gift Vanguard fund shares, and make same-day fund purchases with trade proceeds.

We hope you'll take advantage of this exciting offer, which will greatly enhance your investing experience at Vanguard.

Is there any reason not to do this? If I only invest in their mutual funds, is there any real benefit to doing it?

[FLA]

I have IRA and Roth IRA funds in mutual funds with them and I didn't get this. Maybe its only for funds held outside of retirement vehicles.

[disneysteve]

Maybe its only for funds held outside of retirement vehicles.

That could be. I do have taxable money with them also.

[Jluke]

this switch has been going on for a while, slowly. But it appears (to me) that they want everyone on this new "platform"

I saw it mentioned back in Nov 2014 somewhere else. And it came up again just recently at that same place.

I opened my vanguard account this year. After setting it up, I was researching ETFs within my account when I was prompted to open the brokerage account.

Having never been a VG customer before I don't know what the difference is...

[Petunia 100]

I don't think there is a benefit to you, since you're not paying transaction fees either way. But it won't hurt anything, either.

I have also read elsewhere that Vanguard is moving in this direction. I have not received a similar notice myself.

[disneysteve]

I don't think there is a benefit to you, since you're not paying transaction fees either way. But it won't hurt anything, either.

I have also read elsewhere that Vanguard is moving in this direction. I have not received a similar notice myself.

It seems like they should just transition everyone and eliminate the mutual fund only account type.

[kork13]

It seems like they should just transition everyone and eliminate the mutual fund only account type.

That's exactly what they're doing, albeit over a fairly extended timetable. My accounts got switched over last year (both taxable & Roth IRA). I frankly haven't noticed much of a difference. I'm sure if I used it more I might see where it's different, but I'm a basic customer, just buying on a set schedule.

I did hear/observe that certain features/functions were fiddled with during the transition, so you'll need to make sure that your automatic transactions & bank info & such are all still correct after the switch... But otherwise, I don't think there's any reason to worry about it. Just let it happen.

[disneysteve]

That's exactly what they're doing, albeit over a fairly extended timetable. My accounts got switched over last year

Did you get "invited" to make the switch or did they just do it automatically?

If they want everyone switched over, why send out these invitation emails? Just send out a notice explaining the change and do it.

[scfr]

If I only invest in their mutual funds, is there any real benefit to doing it?

If you only invest in their mutual funds, probably not.

If you are a Vanguard Select customer ($500K+) you get $2 stock trades. If you are a Vanguard Flagship customer ($1M+) you get 25 free stock trades per year and $2 after that. That's one benefit if you are interested in individual stock trades.

[snafu]

There have been so many legal changes in how investment accounts are managed, I suspect that that these giant trading firms and those that still manage remaining huge pension funds exclusively use algorithmic trading. They need a platform that allows side-by-side side- brokerage service for ETFs, stocks and bonds . 'People' as traders are now a tiny slice of the market.

[kork13]

Did you get "invited" to make the switch or did they just do it automatically?

If they want everyone switched over, why send out these invitation emails? Just send out a notice explaining the change and do it.

Yes, I got an email invite to do it. Those invites have been going out for quite a while, based on conversations I've seen on the Boglehead forums. I think it's a capability issue for them... I think they don't have the system capacity to do the transition all at once. I know Vanguard has experienced other problems with having grown too much too fast (especially with customer service), and I expect the slow roll out is another symptom of that.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

No. My most recent email from them was something about meting the next CEO or CIO.