[Rachel]

Hi everyone! My employer’s 401K is thru Fidelity. I had a Roth and a Traditional IRA (a 401k from previous employer) in Vanguard with everything in VTSAX. For simplicity, I moved all my money over to Fidelity last month.

I was able to keep those Vanguard held funds I moved over to Fidelity in VTSAX (the guy at Fidelity said sometimes Vanguard won’t allow it but since I didn’t have an “advisor” at Vanguard that they allowed me to keep everything in VTSAX…not sure how much truth there is to that but nonetheless, I was able to keep the funds in VTSAX even tho the money is at Fidelity now).

Does anyone see any potential problems with this move? I’m starting to wonder if I made a mistake and should move what I can back over to Vanguard. For example, I just got an email from Fidelity with the subject “Vote now! Vanguard Funds Special Meeting”.

I like having all my money in one spot but not if it means more things I have to stay on top of and constantly questioning if I made the right move.

Basically just looking for opinions on if I made a mistake!

TY!!

[Christopher]

The only downside is if you buy more or sell it, you’ll be charged a fee at Fidelity – that’s due to using a vanguard mutual fund at Fidelity.

If you swapped it to VTI, you’d avoid fees buying or selling.
You’d get “vote now” spam from vanguard too.

That’s due to owning a vanguard investment during their shareholder voting period and will happen regardless of where the shares are.

[Abigail]

Switch to the ETF and you’re fine. Otherwise Fidelity will kill you with fees. VTI is what you want. Same thing.

Just an ETF instead of a mutual fund.

[Jasmine]

Nothing wrong with consolidating all investing accounts at Fidelity.
If this were a taxable brokerage account, then it would have been really important to convert the VTSAX to VTI at Vanguard *before* transferring to Fidelity.

This is because doing so after moving to Fidelity would trigger a taxable event, potentially a large one if there has been a lot of growth in the account.

Since this is a retirement account, you should be able to make changes inside the account without triggering a taxable event.

However, Fidelity may still charge fees to do it since they typically charge fees when trading Vanguard mutual funds.

So, it would still have been better to convert VTSAX to VTI before moving to Fidelity, but the impact is much smaller than if this were a regular taxable brokerage account.

[Sean]

You don’t have to vote in those meetings, but Fidelity would have the same thing as far as that goes. Only issue I can see is if they charge you to sell vtsax.

I know they charge to buy, but I would imagine they don’t charge to sell. Aside from that no real issue.

I personally like Fidelity better anyways. I will point out, going forward you won’t want to buy vtsax as you will have to pay a fee.

I’d recommend either VTI or fskax. Either is fine.

[Frank]

Yes, you should have converted the VTSAX to VTI before you moved it. You may get charged fees by Fidelity when you sell it.

Ask them. If you can get out of it without fees now, I would do that (in retirement accounts only) and just rebuy an equal amount of VTI.

Also, that person you spoke to at Fidelity is an idiot.

[Author]

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