Vanguard Commissions
- $7 first 25 trades, $20 subsequent trades for stock/etfs for account with less than $50,000
- Options commission: $30 + $1.50/contract
- Mutual funds: $35
- U.S. Treasury: $0.75 per $1,000 face amount, $40 min–$75 max
- Mortgage-backed securities: $50 per transaction; GNMA minimum purchase: $25,000
Vanguard Important Fees and Surcharges
- Extended hours surcharge: $0
- Large order surcharge: $0
- Penny stocks surcharge: $0
- Option exercises and assignments: $30 + $0.015 per-share
- IRA set-up fee: $0
- Annual IRA fee: $0
Vanguard Pros
- Vanguard ETFs are free
- Very good range of products offered
- Free DRIPs
Vanguard Cons
- Unless you are rich, commissions are high
- Outdated trading technology
- Annual maintennace fee - $20
- $20 per each mutual fund with a balance of less than $10,000 if no electronic statements
- Customer service issues
Vanguard Account Types
- Individual
- Joint
- Uniform Gifts/Transfers to Minors Act (UGMA/UTMA
- Trust
- Attorney-in-fact
- The Vanguard 529 College Savings Plan
- Roth IRA
- Traditional IRA
Vanguard Review
Vanguard's commissions are tiered and depend on customer's account balance: they range from terrible $20 per trade ($7 for the first 25
trades) if account balance is less than 50K, to very appealing $2 per trade (25 free trades) for accounts with over 1 million. Mutual funds
are pretty expensive: $35 per trade. The company is charging $20 annual account maintenance fee but there are no common surcharges.
Minimum to open account is somewhat high $3,000.
Vanguard website, charts and trading tools fell far behind other more dynamic brokerage houses. There are a lot
of complaints on company's customer service.
We don't recommend opening Vanguard brokerage account, as well as accounts in
Merrill Edge (Merrill Edge Review),
Wellstrade (Wellstrade Review) and
Speedtrader (Speedtrader Review). There are a lot of great online
brokers on the market for anyone willing to do some research.
Vanguard
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