Roth IRA - transfer from Fidelity to Vanguard?

[retirementbound]

Hello,

I recently opened a Roth IRA account with Fidelity because that's where my 401K employer account is set up. I've only contributed $2500 to the account, as I want to focus my attention on paying off my mortgage, which should be done sometime this year. My contribution is currently all in the FFFHX Fidelity target date fund, as I don't have much knowledge on investing (I will begin to rectify this by reading The Four Pillars of Investing and The Intelligent Asset Allocator very soon) However, since reading the MMM blog and around the forum, I'm seeing a lot of pro-Vanguard discussions. Should I move my account over to Vanguard? Has anyone does this?

Thank you in advance.

[Physics]

I just did a big consolidation to Vanguard and I've been very impressed.  Their website is solid, with good tools and layout.

They have a free concierge service, which I highly recommend you take advantage of.  You tell them what you want to do: "I want to transfer a Roth IRA from Fidelity to a Roth IRA at Vanguard" and they will talk you through every step along the way, including setting up a 3 way call with you, Vanguard, and the third party institution (fidelity in your case).

I just rolled over an old 401k from Fidelity to a Vanguard IRA and they were very helpful the whole time.  I also moved some taxable-account stock holding from UBS, again no problem.

A word of warning about Fidelity (at least in my experience) they are still a paper system, so they may mail you a check, which then you have to mail to Vanguard.  Why this stuff isn't just done electronically these days is beyond me.  The stock I transfered from UBS was all electronic and "in-kind" meaning it is not a taxable event, the number of shares simply transfer over and you maintain your cost basis etc...



Anyways, yes I would recommend Vanguard.  Go for it, get organized.

[retirementbound]

Great, thank you so much for the advice. I will be getting in touch with Vanguard very soon.

[StaceStache]

I love Vanguard! I transfered my Roth from Edward Jones and Vanguard was very helpful and easy to work with. I highly recommend!

[Physics]

By the way, the 3-way calls were hilarious because both representatives need to inform each other that the call is being recorded on their respective ends of the call, therefore everyone is really really polite and repeats everything out loud to confirm what is being organized in said financial transaction.