Advice? Should my aged parents sign up with Vanguard Asset Management?

[enough]

This is a subject I know nothing about, having no financial assets to manage.

Parents in mid-80's, living in their own house, no mortgage, no great fortune, but they have been saving all their lives and got into the market two or three decades ago.

They are talking to Vanguard about signing up with "Vanguard Asset Management," which sounded fine to me, given that we have no financial expertise in the family to draw on. They are getting increasingly wifty, and I have worried that they might be prey to sophisticated scams, or to just forgetting about stuff. They could use an adviser.

Then I remembered hearing that Vanguard was part of some kind of mutual fund scandal not that long ago.

I would welcome ANY reaction to this from anybody who knows anything about it.

Thanks, all.

[swag]

1. Vanguard = integrity

"Vanguard Asset Management" is their advisory service for higher net worth folks.

Great company, and it has a cooperative structure, meaning that the company is owned by shareholders in Vanguard's funds.

Vanguard's founder, John Bogle, has been a leader in the crusade against high fees, late trading, and other rip-offs rife in the fund industry.

Vanguard specializes in low-cost indexed mutual funds. Burton Malkiel, a pioneer along with Bogle in the "indexing" movement, sits on Vanguard's Board of Directors.

Great outfit.

on edit: I have about 30% of my retirement money invested at Vanguard. If I could, I would have it all invested there, but alas, my 401k is actively managed.

[tjdee]

2. I'd agree with this.

I was looking at different companies for a quick minute or so, and Vanguard seemed to be the most ....er, integrous....one. I too appreciated the cooperative structure.

Swag knows way more than I do about this, but in passing I wanted to give Vanguard the benefit of the doubt too.

[swag]

6. "Integrity" is a hard noun to put into adjectival form, all right.

Integritous?

This woman says there is no adjectival form:

http://namelessgirl.diaryland.com/integritous.html

dictionary.com seems to agree:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=integrity

I'm sure the linguistic process of "assmilation" might get us to "integrous" or "integritous" though.

Perhaps one should propose a constitutional amendment.

[tjdee]

7. Yeah, I was having a moment there...

trying to remember what the adjectival form was.
I felt weird, because I felt surely I must have heard one before.
:silly:

[swag]

3. Please do one more thing

Make sure that they are signing with the "Vanguard Asset Management" that is headquartered in Valley Forge, PA, the one you can find at www.vanguard.com

and not some scammy sound-alike.

Best to you.

[DURHAM D]

4. Been with Vanguard for many years - highly recommend.

[RedEarth]

5. Vanguard is one of the best....

I don't recall Vanguard being part of the mutual fund scandal. I've had money with them for years and from what I understand it is highly regarded within the financial world.