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For those interested, Vanguard has some of the lowest cost unmanaged index funds. Unmanaged funds typically follow indexes and lose you the least in fees, whic

For those interested, Vanguard has some of the lowest cost unmanaged index funds. Unmanaged funds typically follow indexes and lose you the least in fees, which is useful for those to subscribe to this idea that no one beats the market in the long run, and thus invest mostly in index funds.

thecopy 12y ago
If you happen to live in Sweden, i would recommend Avanza Zero[0]. Swedish index fund with no fees at all, not even courtage. (I do not work for Avanza or have any affiliation) [0] https://www.avanza.se/vart-utbud/handel/avanza-zero.html https://www.avanza.se/vart-utbud/handel/avanza-zero.html
- liugiul 12y ago
  Swede & Avanza customer checking in. Can definitely recommend them. If you reside and Sweden, make sure to open a ISK, not an Aktie- och Fondkonto (stock & fund account). Living in Germany and have not been able to find a bank with the same kind of service and reliability. Comdirect comes close, but not good enough for me to close my account with Avanza.
JonFish85 12y ago
If you want to be mildly outraged, compare your 401k program's S&P 500 tracking fund's fees with Vanguard's. Depending on your company, it can be more than 20x the cost, for a fund that requires minimal oversight.
- gleenn 12y ago
  My coworker at an old job did exactly that: found a matching Vanguard fund with nearly identical funds to our 401K. It had 1/6th the fees and that company lost a significant amount of my money. The tax benefits of the higher tax free cap for 401K's versus just having an IRA were definitely not made up for by how poorly my 401K's investments went. tl;dr: open an IRA, buy Vanguard
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - aet 12y ago
    I would also add: save more. Yes, reducing fees is important, but equally important is simply increasing the amount you put away.
  - jannotti 12y ago
    With the caveat that if your job does any 401k matching, you should take advantage of it. Automatic 100% return is hard to beat. (And then if you switch jobs, roll it over into a Vanguard IRA.)
- matwood 12y ago
  Vanguard offers 401ks and Simple IRAs for companies to make available to their employees. Fidelity and Schwab also have low cost plans. If your company has you in a crappy retirement ask them to change!
rb2k_ 12y ago
I personally use Charles Schwab (just because I have my bank account with them) and Wealthfront to invest in ETFs. Schwab is comparable with Vanguard in terms of fees and ETF availability, so I never bothered with opening up an extra account at Vanguard. I use Wealthfront to diversify my ETFs. They take care of distributing the money I put in the account among several areas of the market (U.S. Stocks, Foreign Stocks, Emerging Markets, Dividend Stocks, Natural Resources, Municipal Bonds and Cash). They mostly use Vanguard funds. I could probably also do this myself, but I don't really want to manually balance my portfolio every time asset classes go up and down. So far I only put the amount of money in there that they manage for free. If you intend on signing up, one word of caution: I signed up on their homepage and had 10k under free management. If you sign up via a referral link, you get 15k. I'm still slightly annoyed that I didn't use one when opening an account. I know that it's against the usual HN policy to post them, but since it is detrimental to sign up without one, here we go: http://wlth.fr/196dDW2 http://wlth.fr/196dDW2 (I'd check with my friends first to see if one of them is already on the platform) p.s. this is US centric.
- danielodio 12y ago
  I've tried both Wealthfront and Betterment and found Betterment to be much more usable. It's out-performed Wealthfront in the past 9 months or so (but over the long-term my guess is that they'll both perform similarly) Have you tried both? http://danielodio.com/betterment-vs-wealthfront-which-one-will-maximize-your-wealth-more http://danielodio.com/betterment-vs-wealthfront-which-one-wi...
  - rb2k_ 12y ago
    I looked at both of them initially. As far as I recall, at least back then, the fee structure for people that initially only have a small amount of money invested (10k or so), Wealthfront was slightly better. I also like Wealthfront's UI. Not that I'd do a whole lot besides click the "add more money" button and look at the graph. Turbotax import worked nicely too.
    - aet 12y ago
nerfhammer 12y ago
Vanguard is also fully mutualized, so their incentives are more fully aligned with yours.
- rb2k_ 12y ago
  I remember that this seemed very appealing when I first looked into a place to buy ETFs. I then opened the Schwab account because I really enjoy their checking account and they are, as far as banks go, pretty solid and not prone to screwing customers over.

thecopy 12y ago

If you happen to live in Sweden, i would recommend Avanza Zero[0]. Swedish index fund with no fees at all, not even courtage. (I do not work for Avanza or have any affiliation) [0] https://www.avanza.se/vart-utbud/handel/avanza-zero.html https://www.avanza.se/vart-utbud/handel/avanza-zero.html

liugiul 12y ago
Swede & Avanza customer checking in. Can definitely recommend them. If you reside and Sweden, make sure to open a ISK, not an Aktie- och Fondkonto (stock & fund account). Living in Germany and have not been able to find a bank with the same kind of service and reliability. Comdirect comes close, but not good enough for me to close my account with Avanza.

JonFish85 12y ago

If you want to be mildly outraged, compare your 401k program's S&P 500 tracking fund's fees with Vanguard's. Depending on your company, it can be more than 20x the cost, for a fund that requires minimal oversight.

gleenn 12y ago
My coworker at an old job did exactly that: found a matching Vanguard fund with nearly identical funds to our 401K. It had 1/6th the fees and that company lost a significant amount of my money. The tax benefits of the higher tax free cap for 401K's versus just having an IRA were definitely not made up for by how poorly my 401K's investments went. tl;dr: open an IRA, buy Vanguard
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- aet 12y ago
  I would also add: save more. Yes, reducing fees is important, but equally important is simply increasing the amount you put away.
- jannotti 12y ago
  With the caveat that if your job does any 401k matching, you should take advantage of it. Automatic 100% return is hard to beat. (And then if you switch jobs, roll it over into a Vanguard IRA.)
matwood 12y ago
Vanguard offers 401ks and Simple IRAs for companies to make available to their employees. Fidelity and Schwab also have low cost plans. If your company has you in a crappy retirement ask them to change!

rb2k_ 12y ago

I personally use Charles Schwab (just because I have my bank account with them) and Wealthfront to invest in ETFs. Schwab is comparable with Vanguard in terms of fees and ETF availability, so I never bothered with opening up an extra account at Vanguard. I use Wealthfront to diversify my ETFs. They take care of distributing the money I put in the account among several areas of the market (U.S. Stocks, Foreign Stocks, Emerging Markets, Dividend Stocks, Natural Resources, Municipal Bonds and Cash). They mostly use Vanguard funds. I could probably also do this myself, but I don't really want to manually balance my portfolio every time asset classes go up and down. So far I only put the amount of money in there that they manage for free. If you intend on signing up, one word of caution: I signed up on their homepage and had 10k under free management. If you sign up via a referral link, you get 15k. I'm still slightly annoyed that I didn't use one when opening an account. I know that it's against the usual HN policy to post them, but since it is detrimental to sign up without one, here we go: http://wlth.fr/196dDW2 http://wlth.fr/196dDW2 (I'd check with my friends first to see if one of them is already on the platform) p.s. this is US centric.

danielodio 12y ago
I've tried both Wealthfront and Betterment and found Betterment to be much more usable. It's out-performed Wealthfront in the past 9 months or so (but over the long-term my guess is that they'll both perform similarly) Have you tried both? http://danielodio.com/betterment-vs-wealthfront-which-one-will-maximize-your-wealth-more http://danielodio.com/betterment-vs-wealthfront-which-one-wi...
- rb2k_ 12y ago
  I looked at both of them initially. As far as I recall, at least back then, the fee structure for people that initially only have a small amount of money invested (10k or so), Wealthfront was slightly better. I also like Wealthfront's UI. Not that I'd do a whole lot besides click the "add more money" button and look at the graph. Turbotax import worked nicely too.
  - aet 12y ago

nerfhammer 12y ago

Vanguard is also fully mutualized, so their incentives are more fully aligned with yours.

rb2k_ 12y ago
I remember that this seemed very appealing when I first looked into a place to buy ETFs. I then opened the Schwab account because I really enjoy their checking account and they are, as far as banks go, pretty solid and not prone to screwing customers over.