For long I’ve had Vanguard as my primary investment holding institution. I’ve also dealt with Fidelity, Merrill, Interactive Brokers, Wells Fargo and others for various account types or deals, yet always kept Vanguard as my hub.
For some time I’ve been contemplating moving away from Vanguard. When they added the $100 account closure fee starting in July 2024, I decided to finally jump ship. (Note, some financial institutions will reimburse a closure fee so the $100 fee might be all that bad, in reality.)
I decided to move assets over to Robinhood for the 1% transfer bonus – that deal is still available through June 28th (for any asset request transfers by then).
I’ve never had a Robinhood account, and so I first opened a new Robinhood account through Rakuten for the $50/5,000 bonus. (I hope my asset transfer will suffice to trigger the $50 bonus. Does anyone know if the Rakuten bonus needs $100 cash or $100 in stocks/etfs works for that?) Somewhere along the way I also got a $7 bonus from a free stock that Robinhood gave me.
Now I’m ready to transfer over my assets. To simplify the process, I first called into Vanguard to convert my Vanguard mutual funds to their ETF equivalents. This makes them the funds easily portable.
It was simple to then initiate the transfer request from within Robinhood for the ETFs. A few days later I got an email confirmation from Robinhood that the transfer was completed and eligible for the bonus. The bonus is immediately available for investment which is cool. I’ll have to keep the transferred funds with Robinhood for two years in order to keep the bonus.
The only other funds I now have with Vanguard is a small chunk of money in a Roth IRA. To clean house, I’m considering transferring that over to Robinhood as well for a separate 1% bonus they have on IRAs transfers. (I feel bad that I missed out on the 3% IRA transfer deal, but that one is expired.) Then, I’ll make my 2024 Roth IRA contribution into Robinhood as well for the 1-3% match.
Tangentially, aside from 1) the 1% brokerage transfer deal, 2) the 1% IRA transfer deal, and 3) the IRA contribution 1-3% match, Robinhood also has a fourth deal 4) ongoing now for 1% on cash transfers.Â
Robinhood’s strategy seems to be working. 2024 Q2 earnings report: net income of $188 million, on revenue of $682 million. Total net revenue increased 40% year over year. Share price up about 35% ytd.
Article in WSJ behind a paywall:
Vanguard’s Die-Hard Customers Have a Message for New CEO: ‘The Service Is Abysmal’
Here’s a gift link, not sure how many clicks are allowed: https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/vanguards-die-hard-customers-have-a-message-for-new-ceo-the-service-is-abysmal-c2da0491?st=z8pwtt2d86ksand&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
The match isn’t worth the move to RobbingHood.
Vanguard wants nothing to do with the individual investor. I jumped ship last month.
Fidelity is easily #1.
Robinhood support sucks. Takes forever to get someone online to ask a simple question. Can’t seem to be able to talk to a real person.
Factoid fwiw: China and other foreign countries own about 25% of all USG outstanding debt. https://usafacts.org/articles/which-countries-own-the-most-us-debt/
Bonus: IMDB link to “Rollover” (1981) — https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083006/
Chuck said that he considers transferring his IRA from Vanguard to Robinhood. Would it be too late to start the transfer and hope that it completes this week before the fee starts July 1?
I’m not sure if the Vanguard fee applies to IRAs as well. Regardless, Robinhood does offer to reimburse up to $75 if you’re transferring in more than $7,500. So that would at least cover most of the fee.
Did you find out if the Vanguard fee applies to IRAs? Very curious
Chuck
Oh man, somehow i missed this, amazing deal. Don’t think i have time for an ACATS to complete at this point… missed out on nearly $50k!!
Just have to initiate
You have 5 million dollars?
Well, now you can get $100K with WeBull 🙂
… if you’re willing to risk $4.5M non-SIPC insured in a high-risk brokerage 😕
Does a full account transfer automatically close the vanguard account or is that a separate action?
From experience, I believe with Vanguard if you pull everything out they auto close the account.
Y’all remember GameStop, right? Once you’ve lost trust, you can’t earn it back. You’ve all been warned.
Wells Fargo has done much worse than RH, yet we all stfu and take their money every year.
Anyways thanks for the warning but they are not earning our trust back, they are buying it. Most of us at DoC are fine with that..
Robinhood did nothing wrong in the gamestop fiasco. That narrative being promoted by “apes” was literally just a meme and steeped in financial illiteracy and the community’s vested interest in keeping the bubble going.
Chuck,
RH will reimburse $75 for the cancelation fee you incurred with vanguard if you show them your last vanguard statement and it shows the cancellation fee. Take advantage of that, just chat them and they’ll handle it pretty quick, they did with me.
Lots of people having heart attacks over Robinhood and it’s all off of people who are idiots trading options with no experience and the GameStop issue. Robinhood has great product offerings, IRA match, etc. The transfer bonuses were great too. I have my assets in VOO and SCHG. No gambling problem, just daily automated investing which RH makes easy unlike vanguard.
If you are a long term investor Robinhood is a great choice and the people who think otherwise are paranoid as shit.