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Vanguard Review

With a big selection and very low fees, Vanguard is consistently featured as one of the best brokers. Read this Vanguard review and see why it is a good choice for long-term investors.

Vanguard is a unique online brokerage company known for low-cost investments. The platform is mostly for long-term investors, who are interested in the buy and hold strategy and don’t need graphic charts, streaming data, and indicators to make their trades. Vanguard’s philosophy makes it very attractive to people who are interested in long-term investments, with low costs. If you’re a short-term investor, this platform might not be for you.

The company also operates a low minimum account, which encourages new traders and investors to buy and hold for long term. Despite Vanguard’s biased focused that encourages mostly new and long-term investors, the company keeps growing, this might be because Vanguard is tailored made to suit low-cost traders.

Vanguard Popularity

Vanguard is a very popular online broker without any iota of doubt. The platform boasts of more than 30million users, with about 23.3million web traffic. This is quite a huge following!

Besides, a little more fact analysis shows that Vanguard has about 302,000 followers on twitter and about 224,000 followers on Facebook. Vanguard also score 45 on its user rating on SiteJabber and a general rating of 3.1/5 for its app when about 5000 reviews were considered.

From the above, it’s easy to note that the platform is very famous in mainstream media and has successfully maintained a very low negative media. All of these show that the platform is really popular for good reasons and they are loved by majority of users.

Another factor that might have contributed to Vanguard’s popularity and their reputation is the numerous lists o awards under the company’s belt.  The firm has won notable awards over the years, one of which is the 2019 U.S. Morningstar Award for Investing Excellence for Exemplary Stewardship. Another award they have received is the Best New U.S Equity ETF, among others.

These awards have made them more acceptable to the general public and given them a strong fanbase and popularity among other brokers.

QueryAnswerReference URLDate
Number of users (approximate)30m+ as of January 31, 2020https://about.vanguard.com/who-we-are/fast-facts/20 Aug 2020
Website traffic (estimated)23.3mhttps://www.similarweb.com/website/vanguard.com/20 Aug 2020
# results on web112mhttps://www.google.com/ 20 Aug 2020
Search volume Google1.22mhttps://searchvolume.io20 Aug 2020
Twitter followers302Khttps://twitter.com/Vanguard_Group20 Aug 2020
FB followers224Khttps://www.facebook.com/Vanguard20 Aug 2020
How popular on mainstream media?HighYahoo Finance, Financial Times, Barron’s, WSJ, Forbes20 Aug 2020
Negative media?Very lowhttps://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/vanguard-group20 Aug 2020
Notable awards2019 U.S. Morningstar Award for Investing Excellence for Exemplary Stewardship, Best New U.S. Equity ETF, Best New International/Global Fixed Income ETF, Best New Active ETFhttps://pressroom.vanguard.com/news/Press-Release-Vanguard-Receives-Exemplary-Stewardship-Award-051019.html
https://advisors.vanguard.com/insights/article/IWE_NewsVngdRcnzd3ETFAwds
20 Aug 2020

Vanguard User Rating

QueryAnswerReference URLDate
# users rated on user platforms45 on SiteJabberhttps://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/vanguard.com20 Aug 2020
Percentage of positive reviews out of user reviews91%https://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/vanguard.com20 Aug 2020
Common complimentsGood investment platform, low feeshttps://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/vanguard.com20 Aug 2020
Common complaintsSometimes poor customer servicehttps://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/vanguard.com20 Aug 2020
Positive feedback on Twitter?Great information and analysishttps://twitter.com/Vanguard_Group20 Aug 2020
Negative feedback on Twitter?Hard to receive help from supporthttps://twitter.com/Vanguard_Group20 Aug 2020
App rating (summary)Almost 5K reviews with an average rating of 3.1 / 5https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vanguard
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vanguard/id1433920498
20 Aug 2020

Vanguard Background Information

John. C. Bogle began the idea of Vanguard in 1983 to help clients with bonds and stocks using the mutual fund approach. Right from inception, the platform was never designed for short term investment and frequent trading, rather the idea was to encourage long-term investments by leveraging low costs fees.

Vanguard’s philosophy and mission was so widely accepted that it became a standard for other competitors like Fidelity and Charles Schwab to follow later on. In recent times, the company has focused its efforts in educating new investors on how to make experienced trading moves by providing guidance, with incentives that rewards careful trading.

As at 2020, the company boast of a revenue data of $48.5 billion with an employee strength totaling about 17,600.

Company public/privatePrivatehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vanguard_Group
Revenue Data$48.5 billion in Q1 of 2020https://www.marketwatch.com/story/vanguard-blew-away-the-competition-in-q1-fund-flow-data-show-2020-04-03
CEO and bioMortimer J. Buckley – earned a BA degree in economics in 1991 from Harvard College and an MBA degree in 1996 from Harvard Business Schoolhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortimer_J._Buckley
Number of employees17,600https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vanguard_Group
Notable investors (private companies)Nonehttps://www.crunchbase.com/organization/vanguard

Vanguard Security

As expected, Vanguard has a top-notch security protocol that is expected of an online brokerage at their level. Both primary and secondary security protocol exist to help in accessing individual accounts, while biometric recognition is needed to have access into the mobile app.

Moreover, the fear of losing money and sensitive data that most investors have has been mitigated by the company. They did this by insuring clients’ accounts with SIPC by the London Insurance and Lloyd’s of London.  This is why there hasn’t been any reported case of significant breach of data since Nov. 2019 in any of its locations.

Here are also a few extra security checks that Vanguard has put in place to make their system is impermeable to attacks.

  • Security Codes

This is one of the measures that Vanguard has put in place to authenticate your identity when you log in using an unknown device. You will be sent a unique 6- digit number as a text message or you may receive an automated phone call. You will then be required to use this code to verify your person. This is called a 2-factor authentication.

  • Security Keys

Another way to increase the security of your system is to buy a security key which is like a flash drive that you can attach to your system to confer an extra layer of security every time you login. This is particularly useful to foil hacking attempts.

  • Voice Verification

This is as simples as it comes, your voice is all you need to confirm your identity and access your accounts. 

QueryAnswerReference URL
HTTPS CertificateYeshttps://investor.vanguard.com
2FA ?Yeshttps://investor.vanguard.com/security-center
Device monitoring?Yeshttps://investor.vanguard.com/security-center
New device extra security?Yeshttps://investor.vanguard.com/security-center

Vanguard Fees & Offering

Vanguard is renowned for its zero fees on almost all its trading option while charging very small fees on other activities. However, their account minimum is $20. Per leg commissions on option trade also doesn’t exist. More so, in case you need to be inactive for a season, you don’t have to worry about been charged recurrent bills as there are no fees on inactivity. Paper statements, trade confirmation, wire sending and receiving all comes at no cost too.

QueryAnswerReference URL
Account minimum$20https://investor.vanguard.com/investing/account-fees
Account fixed fees$20https://investor.vanguard.com/investing/account-fees
Fractional shares?Nohttps://www.fool.com/the-ascent/buying-stocks/vanguard-brokerage-review/
Margin costsVarieshttps://investor.vanguard.com/investing/margin
ETF buying feesNonehttps://investor.vanguard.com/investing/transaction-fees-commissions/etfs
Stock buying feesNonehttps://investor.vanguard.com/investing/transaction-fees-commissions/stocks
Option buying fees$0 + $1-per-contract feehttps://investor.vanguard.com/investing/transaction-fees-commissions/options
Short selling feesNonehttps://www.brokerage-review.com/online-trading/short/vanguard-shorting-stocks.aspx
Futures buying feesNot availablehttps://investor.vanguard.com/investing/investment/alternative-investments
Future options buying feesNot availablehttps://investor.vanguard.com/investing/investment/alternative-investments
Cryptocurrency feesNot available –
Fixed income feesNonehttps://investor.vanguard.com/investing/transaction-fees-commissions/cds-bonds
Mutual funds feesNonehttps://investor.vanguard.com/investing/transaction-fees-commissions/mutual-funds

Vanguard Trading App

Asides form the oddness of the interface which apparently is because it is old, the trading app really works well.  However, the popularity of the trading app is undeniable as the app has over 1million downloads on Android app store and about 4756 reviews from users.

iPhone app users seem to rate the app better giving a rating of 4.1/5 which is more than android users who rated the app for just 2.1/5. This might be because of the difference in user interface. However, the weighted average rating of the app is about 3.1/5 which leaves one with the conclusion that the app is generally well accepted by all. 

One of the reasons that might account for the good acceptance despite the problem with the interface may be because of their great customer support services. Many users have commented the customer support was really helpful and supportive. The customer support team can be reached via calls from 8am to 8pm.

QueryAnswerReference URL
Android app # installs1m+https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vanguard
Android app # reviews4756https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vanguard
iPhone app # reviews29https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vanguard/id1433920498
Android app rating2.1 / 5https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vanguard
iPhone app rating4.1 / 5https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vanguard/id1433920498
Common compliments on appEasy to use and navigate once you get used to it.https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vanguard
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vanguard/id1433920498
Common complaints on appNo fingerprint support, the app feels dated.https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vanguard
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vanguard/id1433920498
Weighted average app rating3.1 / 5https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vanguard
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vanguard/id1433920498

Final conclusions:

Vanguard has many awards to prove its success and popularity among traders and investors.  If you are looking for long term investments, then this platform is a sure bet. However, if you’re looking for short term trades, you may need to explore other options. 

Overall, the company’s security approach, huge educational resources and diverse investment options all at a low fees have made them irresistible to traders and investors over the years.

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