I have duplicate holdings at a different brokerage and wanted to consolidate them with those at Vanguard. I tried to initiate partial account transfer online at Vanguard. The first thing it asked was the other brokerage account username and password with a note that this information will be used by a third party to initiate the transfer but that Vanguard will not keep that information. I can trust Vanguard but not a third party I never did business with.
Has anybody transferred assets to Vanguard brokerage recently and what was your experience?
P.S.: I tried to reach their onboarding department by phone for the past two days and after an hour plus on the phone I received a voice mail one day and the other day it got disconnected.
I transferred assets from Vanguard to another brokerage a few clicks in a 1 minute. I thought Vanguard might have a similar, simpler process to receive assets.

I don't believe that funds can outright reject redemption orders (though they can postpone orders as was done in Sept 2001 when the markets were shut down). However, funds can place restrictions that might trigger on large orders. It is easy to imagine that such atypical transactions could not be processed online.
From the prospectus of FCNTX:

payment of redemption proceeds may take longer than the time a fund typically expects and may take up to seven days from the date of receipt of the redemption order as permitted by applicable law.
...
a fund reserves the right to pay part or all of your redemption proceeds in readily marketable securities instead of cash (redemption in-kind). Redemption in-kind proceeds will typically be made by delivering the selected securities to the redeeming shareholder within seven days after the receipt of the redemption order in proper form by a fund.

It would be interesting to know what the stumbling block was.

Agree AndyJ...great idea sharing as always!!1 It's just great to get different perspectives and research products you never looked at before.

Some here enjoy Krugman's thoughts, and today he qualifies the above:
It’s been a troubled few months on the economic front. Inflation has soared to a 28-year high. Supermarket shelves are bare, and gas stations closed. Good luck if you’re having problems with your home heating system: Replacing your boiler, which normally takes 48 hours, now takes two or three months. President Biden really is messing up, isn’t he?
Oh, wait. That inflation record was set not in America but in Germany. Stories about food and gasoline shortages are coming from Britain. The boiler replacement crisis seems to be hitting France especially hard.
And one major driver of recent inflation, in America and everywhere else, has been a spike in energy prices — prices that are set in world markets, on which any one country, even the United States, has limited influence. Donald Trump has been claiming that if he were president, gas would be below $2 a gallon. How exactly does he imagine he could achieve that, when oil is traded globally and America accounts for only about a fifth of the world’s oil consumption?
In other words, the problems that have been crimping recovery from the pandemic recession seem, by and large, to be global rather than local. That’s not to say that national policies are playing no role. For example, Britain’s woes are partly the result of a shortage of truck drivers, which in turn has a lot to do with the exodus of foreign workers after Brexit. But the fact that everyone seems to be having similar problems tells us that policy is playing less of a role than many people seem to think. And it does raise the question of what, if anything, the United States should be doing differently.
So why does the whole world seem to be running on empty?
Many observers have been drawing parallels with the stagflation of the 1970s. But so far, at least, what we’re experiencing doesn’t look much like that. Most economies have been growing, not shrinking; unemployment has been falling, not rising. While there have been some supply disruptions — Chinese ports have suffered closures as a result of Covid outbreaks, in March a fire at a Japanese factory that supplies many of the semiconductor chips used in cars around the world hit auto production, and so on — these disruptions aren’t the main story.
Probably the best parallel is not with 1974 or 1979 but with the Korean War, when inflation spiked, hitting almost 10 percent at an annual rate, because supply couldn’t keep up with surging demand.
Is demand really all that high? Real final sales (purchases for consumption or investment) in the United States hit a record high but are roughly back to the prepandemic trend. However, the composition of demand has changed. During the worst of the pandemic, people were unable or unwilling to consume services like restaurant meals, and they compensated by buying more stuff — consumer durables like cars, household appliances and electronics. At their peak, purchases of durable goods were an astonishing 34 percent above prepandemic levels; they’ve come down some but are still very high. Something similar seems to have happened around the world.
Meanwhile, supply has been constrained not just by clogged ports and chip shortages but also by the Great Resignation, the apparent reluctance of many workers to return to their old jobs. Like inflation and shortages of goods, this is an international phenomenon. Reports from Britain, in particular, sound remarkably like those from the United States: Large numbers of workers, especially older workers, appear to have chosen to stay at home and perhaps retire early after having been forced off their jobs by Covid-19.
While the problems may be global, the political fallout is local: Shortages and inflation are clearly hurting Biden’s approval rating. But what could or should U.S. policymakers be doing differently?
As I’ve already suggested, energy prices are largely out of U.S. control.
A few months ago, there were widespread claims that enhanced unemployment benefits were discouraging workers from accepting jobs. Many states rushed to cancel these benefits even before they expired at a national level in early September. But there has been no visible positive effect on labor supply.
Should current shortages inspire caution about Democratic spending plans? No. At this point, the Build Back Better agenda, if it happens at all, will amount to only about 0.6 percent of G.D.P. over the next decade, largely paid for by tax increases. It won’t be a significant inflationary force; if anything, more spending on infrastructure would help alleviate inflationary pressures over time.
Other things might help. I’ve argued in the past that vaccine mandates, by making Americans feel safer about going to work and buying services rather than goods, could play a role in unclogging supply chains.
What’s left? If inflation really starts to look as if it’s getting embedded in the economy, the Federal Reserve should head it off by tightening policy, eventually by raising interest rates. It’s important to realize, however, that raising rates too soon could turn out to be a big mistake, since the Fed won’t have much room to cut rates if demand weakens.
The most important point, however, may be not to overreact to current events. The fact that shortages and inflation are happening around the world is actually an indication that national policies aren’t the main cause of the problems. They are, instead, largely inevitable as economies try to restart after the epic disruptions caused by Covid-19. It will take time to sort things out — more time than most people, myself included, expected. But a frantic attempt to restore the status quo on inflation would do more harm than good.

@Mark: Did you get any important “take-aways” from the most recent newsletter you might distill for us?
I got this far and than they wanted me to setup a free account: “A Steady Fed Suggests Further Gains In The Overall Stock Market”
That’s been the conventional wisdom for a long time now. Money is / has been cheap (since 2008). We could play some games with that widely held belief by plugging in various possible scenarios
1. Rates stay low indefinitely and stocks go up forever.
2. Rates fall even further (below 0) and the Fed begins buying up equities to “protect” investors, 401-Ks and the like. The stock market goes even higher - forever.
3. Inflation soars. Rates stay low. The stock market continues to rise - but your market “winnings” buy substantially less. (This may not persist for long, as debtors would fare better during prolonged high inflation than the wealthier individuals / corporations who lent the money.)
4. Inflation soars. Rates rise steeply. Stocks tumble.

Oakmark
https://oakmark.com/news-insights/2021-fund-capital-gain-distribution-estimates/

No deductions. None. And I assume the tax applies to all income. For all taxpayers including businesses, which is the subject of this thread.
So we eliminate the deduction that mutual funds get for passing through their earnings to investors. Make no mistake, that's a deduction that they get now. See IRC 26 USC § 852, that talks about "the deduction for dividends paid", including "capital gain dividends". Mutual funds will be taxed on their earnings.
And we eliminate the IRA deduction. That's an "above the line" deduction rather than an itemized deduction, but a deduction is a deduction. We want to keep things simple. Obviously HSA, FSA, 401k deductions, and so forth also get tossed.
And income is income, no special cases there either. In the above cited 26 USC § 852 is §852(b)(6). That excludes certain sales of appreciated property from being counted as income. Of course that special treatment has to go in pursuit of simplicity and fairness. That's the exclusion that enables ETFs to spin off capital gains without them being taxed. So now we tax the ETF in-kind transactions like all other income.
Regarding the suggested tax regimen generally, Milton Friedman was more considerate of the poor. In 1962 he proposed what he called a negative income tax. The amount paid on zero income would be negative, and taxes increased (at a flat rate) as one's income increased.
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/23/business/23scene.html
https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/negative-income-tax-explained

15% on all forms for income (wages, cap gains, rents, interest, etc.) with zero deductions. None. Give every person (including corporations) a $25,000 personal exemption. This would mean a family of four wouldn't start paying taxes until they hit $100,000. Very easy - just pay at the window.
rono

Nice. I would add a deduction (childcare credit for working parents) or stay at home credit for parents with kids under 5 years of age. If you choose to stay home, a credit. SS and Medicare deductions worked into that credit to recognize that staying at home raising kids is a job. Stay at home requirement - both the child and the parent participant in Pre-K /Adult Training offered in the same facility.
Corporations and small businesses offer a paid / government supported entry level work program for graduating parents. This offers offers full-time pay of $50K / year.
Which leads me to the question of how do we get a handle the welfare side of government programs? Can this be simplified as well?

Howdy folks,
Right now, the dems are imploding in DC proving the adage, that the democrats are stupid and the republicans are mean. Being a 3rd term elected republican, I take it further to state that most republicans are dirty old white men who are racist sexist religinazi creeps that should even be allowed in public off leash and without a handler.
As for taxes, rono rolls out his solution. 15% on all forms for income (wages, cap gains, rents, interest, etc.) with zero deductions. None. Give every person (including corporations) a $25,000 personal exemption. This would mean a family of four wouldn't start paying taxes until they hit $100,000. Very easy - just pay at the window.
and so it goes,
peace and keep wearing the damn mask,
rono

I prefer VNLA in the short duration space, though having a poor year. That being said, my general thinking is why take any risk when you can get 1% in an online account? T-Mobile money (through customers bank) is offering 1% right now, FYI.

Morgan Stanley
https://www.morganstanley.com/im/publication/forms/tax/2021-estimated-year-end-distributions.pdf

According to M*, HSGFX has $365.7 Mil in assets.
I wonder why investors have stuck with this dog?
This reminds me of the Steadman Fund family.
Pundits have labeled several Steadman funds as the worst of all time.
"You might wonder why anyone would even consider investing in funds operated in such a manner and with such draconian performance. The answer is that they didn’t. From 1988 until 1998 the fund did not acquire any new investors. But many current investors simply failed to sell, which enabled Steadman and his family to continue to milk the funds as a source of income for themselves. While some investors presumably stopped paying attention, a large number actually died while holding the fund. The L.A. Times stated that by 1998 fully 40% of the accounts had been legally abandoned. One can only speculate as to whether or not the funds’ performance had any hand in their demise."
Link

+1 Yes-probably any of the hundreds of competent 60/40 balanced funds !

+1.

You’d have made less than a half-percent annually had you bought the fund when it opened 21 years ago.

That is really sad. After 2% inflation, the investors are behind every year.

FWIW - HSAFX’s allocation per Lipper:
46% Stocks
41% Cash
13% Bonds
0% Other

Fido must be monitoring this board because when I went to buy BGHAX there, I noticed the 3.5% load. BGHAX is ntf at Vanguard with a 1,000 minimum so I bought it there before Vanguard changes their mind too !

Why not BGHIX? I've lived with this fund also HIXr years (including prior to the recent BrandwineGlobal affiliation), and its fantastic.

LMZIX is (pardon the redundancy) BrandywineGlobal Global High Yield, as opposed to BGHSX, BrandwineGlobal High Yield without the global in the fund name. Two different funds.
Fidelity charges nothing to sell TF funds. However, as Crash noted, BGHIX has got a $1M min at Fidelity and everywhere else I've looked. If you can spring for a $1M investment, I don't think you'll blink at a $49.95 TF when buying.
BGHAX is NTF with a low minimum at several brokerages, but not at Fidelity.
On a test trade: "A sales charge of up to 3.50% may apply."
https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/summary/52472T734

@carew388- Thx, got me to check at Schwab- NTF / $100 minimum