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Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Investor Alley => Topic started by: G. Thomas on September 22, 2015, 08:38:42 PM

Title: Personal Capital's fee report
Post by: G. Thomas on September 22, 2015, 08:38:42 PM
Personal Capital recently released a (marketing) report titled "The Real Cost of Fees".  The report breaks down the fees charged by the 10 largest brokers to show the savings by switching to their platform.  The two expenses summed are Advisory fee and Mutual Fund fee.

I was unaware that there were fund fees on top of advisory fees, I figured they were built in.

Does Vanguard have fees beyond the percentage shown on the individual fund's page?

Anything I'm missing?

Report: https://www.personalcapital.com/assets/whitepapers/PC_Fees_WhitePaper.pdf
Title: Re: Personal Capital's fee report
Post by: MDM on September 22, 2015, 09:56:45 PM
Does Vanguard have fees beyond the percentage shown on the individual fund's page?
The short answer is "yes, but you probably aren't paying any."

See https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/fees for more details.  E.g., your probably get electronic statements so you don't pay that fee, etc.
Title: Re: Personal Capital's fee report
Post by: ShoulderThingThatGoesUp on September 23, 2015, 05:50:52 AM
This is tendentious because it assumes you pay your brokerage's advisory fee. And the average ETF expense ratio is a weird metric - do they weight that by a standard portfolio? The highest ER fund I have through Schwab has a 0.14% expense ratio (SCHE, emerging markets) - the one I have the most of is SCHB (broad US market) with 0.04%.
Title: Re: Personal Capital's fee report
Post by: Indexer on September 23, 2015, 07:34:37 PM
Does Vanguard have fees beyond the percentage shown on the individual fund's page?

If you only own the Vanguard mutual funds and that is it.... most likely. There is a $20 fee if you have a smaller dollar amount and you have physical statements. Again you probably don't have this fee.

If you trade non-Vanguard brokerage items(stocks, non-VG mutual funds, individual bonds, etc.) there are fees for that.

If you use their advisory service there is an extra fee for that, but only if you use it.

If you have the Vanguard total stock index admiral shares and that is it... your ER is probably 0.05% and that is it.
Title: Re: Personal Capital's fee report
Post by: Lski'stash on September 23, 2015, 07:59:14 PM
Good report- thank you!