Why Vanguard Is Too Big For You

The more recent news stories about Salim Ramji's hiring as the new CEO of Vanguard refer to the transition as "planned." A July 11 piece in InvestorDaily is one example, writing: Salim Ramji has assumed the role of chief executive officer and joined the Vanguard Group’s board of directors, effective 8 July 2024. Ramji's appointment was part of a planned transition announced on 14 May 2024. He succeeds Tim Buckley, who is retiring from the Vanguard Group after more than 30 years of distinguished service, including a highly successful tenure as chairman and chief executive officer. But … [Read more...]

Remember using a payphone? For those of us born before the new century, feeding quarters and dimes into a payphone to make calls feels a bit nostalgic at this point. But how do you feel about paying for phone service when your retirement is on the line? No one should be nickeled and dimed for a phone call when there are hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on the line. But that's what Vanguard, in its pursuit of new revenue streams, is doing to its customers. Jeff Blumenthal of the Philadelphia Business Journal reports: The Vanguard Group will be adding fees to its brokerage … [Read more...]

We are in week one of the changing of the guard at Vanguard. New CEO Salim Ramji from BlackRock took over on Monday. “Vanguard’s Die-Hard Customers Have a Message for New CEO: ‘The Service is Abysmal,’” wasn’t written by Your Survival Guy, it was a headline in The WSJ. You know from my Special Report on Vanguard that times have changed at the firm. The company, founded by Jack Bogle and touted by Richard C. Young’s Intelligence Report, brought investors a fair shake: low-cost, passive investing. Today, Vanguard, along with BlackRock and State Street, manage trillions of dollars in the … [Read more...]

Your Survival Guy sees this latest move as a push to a higher fee advisor service, or else. According to Think Advisor's Dinah Wisenberg Brin, Vanguard is warning clients that if they use phone support too much, their accounts will be canceled. Wisenberg Brin writes: Vanguard Group’s aim to steer brokerage customers toward online engagement rather than phone contact became clearer recently when the firm warned that, come Monday, too many calls could lead to account termination. This change, taken with recently announced fee additions at Vanguard Brokerage Services, has raised questions … [Read more...]

You know there's a new CEO at Vanguard. Salim Ramji is the company's first outside hire for CEO in its history. Now, he's facing the challenges left for him by the former Vanguard executives who pushed out John Bogle. Andrew Welsch notes in a piece in Barron's that customers are unhappy with both Vanguard's service and technology. He writes: Vanguard’s new CEO Salim Ramji takes the helm today, becoming the company’s first chief executive hired from outside its ranks. Ramji is unlikely to make big changes at the start of his tenure. For example, he previously confirmed to Barron’s that he … [Read more...]

You have made yourselves heard, at least to Your Survival Guy. Vanguard's service isn't what it once was. Now, Vanguard's new CEO, former BlackRock exec, Salim Ramji, is being told the same thing. Will he listen? Don't get your hopes up. Jack Pitcher reports in The Wall Street Journal: Vanguard won an army of loyal customers by cutting fees to the bone and promoting simple index-tracking investing. Now many of those fans are fed up. New Chief Executive Salim Ramji will be the first outsider to take the helm of the beloved fund manager on Monday, and many clients are hoping he will finally … [Read more...]

When you call about your investments, are you going crazy with the phone tree? How about navigating websites trying to find your statements? Do you feel like you’re getting the answers you need when you need them? When you consider how confusing investing can be—and believe me, they do it on purpose, so you’ll need them—you can become frustrated. Frustration is a terrible feeling. If you’re a regular reader of Your Survival Guy, congratulations, you have some money. You have some wealth. You didn’t get here by accident. We’re together because you have made it your goal to keep what … [Read more...]

You read here about my concerns with the big three and how much Vanguard has changed from the Jack Bogle and Richard C. Young's Intelligence Report years. There was a time when Vanguard was the number one recommended mutual fund firm in Intelligence Report. When founder Jack Bogle was exiled far, far away from the decision-makers—in an annex away from the C-suites at the Valley Forge, PA campus—change was in the air. Why? Follow the money. More streams of income were needed as Bogle's wildly successful product—the passive index fund—became a commodity, and the push for a higher fee … [Read more...]