I think there is definitely a rivalry between Fido, Vanguard and even Dodge & Cox. From what I can tell ,Vanguard and Dodge & Cox funds are the only funds that Fido charges a $75 transaction fee to purchase !

Vanguard and Dodge & Cox choose not to pay distribution fees to be included on a brokerage firm's platform.
"Brokerage firms, for their part, have scant incentive to make it any easier to buy Vanguard products. Not only does Vanguard compete against their funds, but Vanguard has never paid for fund distribution. Fidelity and other brokerage firms have long chafed at Vanguard’s refusal to pay for distribution. Some fund companies pay more than 0.15% of fund assets to be on Fidelity’s platform, for instance. Those fees are increasingly important to brokerage firms as expense ratios decline and investors migrate out of actively managed funds to low-cost index products."
“'Vanguard doesn’t compensate us for the services we provide,' a Fidelity spokeswoman told Barron’s. 'That’s why there’s a higher transaction fee for its funds,' she added, referring to the $75 fee that Fidelity charges to buy a Vanguard fund, well above its normal $49.95 rate."
Link
N o M a r k e t i n g C a m p a i g n s
"Another important distinguishing characteristic of our firm is that we rely primarily on word of mouth to sell our Funds—you have never seen an advertising campaign for Dodge & Cox.
We neither pay for distribution nor pay brokers to sell our funds."
Link

Yeah ... lots of folks find the hassle of running a fund really unattractive. That partly explains the huge level of merger & acquisition activity. My general sense that is mid-sized managers - the 10-50 fund folks - are in the worst spot. Boutiques have at least a shot because they've got an institutional identity and, sometimes, a trusted name above the door. Behemoths are doing fine. It's the undistinguished folks in the middle - the Wells Fargos of the world - who are shedding funds and management teams, often by off-loading them to other advisors.

“Now if Vanguard and Fidelity would expand access for their funds, I wouldn't need 4 or 5 brokerage accounts!”
Interesting comment. I’m spread out across 1 brokerage now + 3 fund companies. In retrospect it was a mistake to let most of that pile up at TRP. For many years I held a kind of reverence for them. I know some disagree, but spreading it out a bit seems like a good idea. I’ve toyed with getting something going at Schwab. I’ll wait and see.

I think there is definitely a rivalry between Fido, Vanguard and even Dodge & Cox. From what I can tell ,Vanguard and Dodge & Cox funds are the only funds that Fido charges a $75 transaction fee to purchase !

I don't think TRP cares where you buy their funds. They saw their AUM stalling out and allowed Vanguard, Schwab and Fidelity to sell their funds etf. Apparently E-Trade and TD Ameritrade weren't generating enough sales, so they opened fund access to the Big 3. Now if Vanguard and Fidelity would expand access for their funds, I wouldn't need 4 or 5 brokerage accounts !

Thanks @carew388. There were brief times in my discussions when I thought I detected some animosity (maybe cultural clash is a better term) between the 2 firms. T Rowe wanted to keep me as much in the “fog” as to what had happened. Fido, on the other hand, seemed more open about what they knew. I’d say Fido’s mailing me copies of the bounced checks (unsolicited) sorta confirms that.

”If I recall correctly, TRP is a publicly traded company. It could be that large investors are pressuring the company to cut costs, leading to the decline in customer service. We invested directly with TRP for 25+ years, and their service has definitely declined in recent years.”

I’ve often wondered how that public ownership might play out - if at all. Assumed it would be on the fund management end. Likely it’s playing out instead on the client service end. Hard to think of any company where the client-customer end of the business hasn’t deteriorated. Humans are expensive to maintain due to their propensity to eat, along with the need for shelter, medical care, etc. A lot cheaper to have computers run the show - even perhaps at the cost of losing some business.

hank I don't think TRP cares where you buy their funds. They saw their AUM stalling out and allowed Vanguard, Schwab and Fidelity to sell their funds etf. Apparently E-Trade and TD Ameritrade weren't generating enough sales, so they opened fund access to the Big 3. Now if Vanguard and Fidelity would expand access for their funds, I wouldn't need 4 or 5 brokerage accounts !

If I recall correctly, TRP is a publicly traded company. It could be that large investors are pressuring the company to cut costs, leading to the decline in customer service. We invested directly with TRP for 25+ years, and their service has definitely declined in recent years.

“Is anyone out there looking around and deciding to bail or to substantially reduce their risk exposure?”
In short - Not here.
I agree things look bubbllish. But how you react depends on your initial positioning, as well as how diversified you are (plus lots of other factors). I try to look at “worst likely downside” for things I own. If I’m comfortable with that, than fine.
Probably more troubling than that initial downside, would be the persistency or length of the downtrend. A 7% yearly loss for 5 years would hurt more than a one year loss of 20% followed by some up years.
Was glad to get a second chance to add a bit to my mining fund at Invesco this week. NAV fell back down to where it was 3-4 months ago. I did bail from PRAFX couple weeks ago (and it’s continued rising). Shifted that to a good global infrastructure fund. But that’s related to my outlook on the two sectors rather than a fear of markets in general.
-
FWIW - Watching the charts … energy & broad based commodities look high, Value looks decent - but a lot of “hot” money’s been moving in this year. I wouldn’t add to it if already exposed. . Small caps have been bid up by the fanatics at Robinhood. EM is probably good longer term but may go down before up. Some observers I watch like EM bonds better than equities. I think the dollar will weaken. But I’ve been mostly wrong on that for years.
At this point it’s largely about gaming the central banks (and Fed) and anticipating how long they might allow a steep market slide to persist. My firm belief is they will continue to flood markets with easy money if necessary to keep the ship upright. (That doesn’t mean we can’t see a 20+% selloff in some equity markets nearer term. )

I just revisited Grantham's January 5 article. His best guess at that time:

My best guess as to the longest this bubble might survive is the late spring or early summer, coinciding with the broad rollout of the COVID vaccine. At that moment, the most pressing issue facing the world economy will have been solved. Market participants will breathe a sigh of relief, look around, and immediately realize that the economy is still in poor shape, stimulus will shortly be cut back with the end of the COVID crisis, and valuations are absurd. “Buy the rumor, sell the news.”

According to Grantham, it's time to look around (and bail).
So, I'm looking around. The economy is in much better shape than I expected it to be at mid-year and its potential appears brighter than I expected. The Fed and other central banks are continuing to be supportive. And, there is momentum behind an infrastructure bill that has the potential to provide substantial long needed investment in the backbone of the country. Are valuations really likely to collapse in the near future based on valuations being "high"?
One of today's headlines:
Haters everywhere in stock market after S&P 500's big first half
A few brief excerpts from that Bloomberg article:

...the S&P 500’s 14 per cent rally (is) putting it on course for its second-best January through June period since 1998.
In the 27 years when gains in equities were this strong through the first six months, three-quarters of the time stocks continued to march higher by December.
...pushing against the wall of worries are the growing numbers of retail traders who bought the dip during the pandemic bear market and have since become the staunchest allies of this bull market.
The trade-off households face between equities and other asset classes favors equities through year-end given anemic money market and credit yields

I plan to continue harvesting year-to-date gains to restrict my risk exposure.....if the market continues to offer them (that process has provided a substantial boost to my "rainy day" cash on hand so far this year). But no significant other trimming is in the offing....
Is anyone looking around and deciding to bail or to substantially reduce their risk exposure?

- To the OP, that sounds like a horror story.
- I am planning to in-kind transfer a TRP mutual fund (custodial IRA) to Fidelity. If I transfer all the assets in the account, will I be charged an account closing fee? TIA.

It feels like “to Hell and back”. :)
Re your question. It’s $20 at TRP for each closed out account. However, they only applied it to my 5 “liquidate all shares” orders ($100 total). The “transfer in kind” orders were not charged. I wish I’d had the foresight to combine the 3 shorter term bond funds (via exchange) before submitting the paperwork. Would have saved $40.
During my estimated 7-8 hours on the phone with TRP over a week (counting hold times) I tried to shame them into reversing the $60 in fees on the 3 transfers for which checks bounced. Said they’d “call back”. (But I’m not holding my breath.)

Schwab seems to have the clearest description of violations and how they can/must be treated by the broker ("creditor" in the regs). The rules come from Regulation T, and in particular §220.8 covering cash accounts.
https://www.schwab.com/resource-center/insights/content/stock-settlement-why-you-need-to-understand-t2-timeline
I found this part interesting:

Extensions
At Schwab, if you fail to make payment on a purchase of stock or deliver shares for a sale of stock within the designated time frame, you will receive a notification asking that you take action.
If you fail to act upon notification, industry regulations require that Schwab either request an extension, or buy back or sell out the position, as well as mark your account with a freeriding violation. Your account may also be placed on a 90-day settled-cash restriction, or incur more severe penalties, including account closure or removal of electronic access. Again, Schwab clients can request a one-time exception (i.e., once in the life of the account) to remove the restriction.
Schwab doesn't grant extensions for trades in retirement accounts (IRA's, SEP's Keogh's, etc.), or accounts with existing trading restrictions.

I suspect that Schwab doesn't grant extensions in IRAs because of the stringent law against borrowing in IRAs. But that wouldn't seem to preclude waiving the 90 day restriction imposed.
Reg T itself says:

(d)(1) Unless the creditor's examining authority believes that the creditor is not acting in good faith or that the creditor has not sufficiently determined that exceptional circumstances warrant such action, it may upon application by the creditor:
...
        (iii) Grant a waiver from the 90 day freeze.

Certainly there are exceptional circumstances here. If the freeze is important to you, it's worth poking Fidelity about their applying for a waiver.
All of this is bringing back memories of a vaguely similar experience I had with Fidelity. In an IRA I set up an auto purchase of a TF fund. I set the amount to be the available cash in the account. The system permitted this order to go through even though there was a $5 TF added. (Fidelity says that "If the cash needed to fund your automatic investment is not available in your core position, your scheduled transfer will be skipped", so this should have been caught.)
"Fortunately", the purchase was for one of the few OEFs with T+2 settlement. I worked with Fidelity and they agreed that if I were to sell $5 of another holding the next day, a fund with T+1 settlement, that would cover the shortfall. Both trades would settle on the same day.
According to Schwab, that still constituted a liquidation violation:

If an option or mutual fund is sold the day after a stock is purchased, a liquidation violation will be charged even if the proceeds settle on or before the purchase settlement date.

https://help.streetsmart.schwab.com/edge/1.22/Content/Unsettled Funds.htm
Fidelity never informed me that I had committed a liquidation violation.

This is an interesting development for ESG investors. The Engine No. 1 ETF will be seeded with $100 million, has a 0.05% expense ratio, invests like the S&P 500 and will finally vote the right way on ESG issues: https://etf.engine1.com/ That means if it gets a suitable amount of trading volume, it could easily compete with Vanguard's and BlackRock's S&P 500 ETFs, which generally vote against ESG shareholder activists.

...And another quick item: the one single stock I own (in a very small quantity) closed at a share price of $2.91 at the end of the day today. But TRP shows it at $2.95. There's only one word for that: WRONG. I bought those shares using my TRP brokerage account, for ZERO fees. Is the zero-fee aspect actually worth it, though? Ticker: ENIC.

hank I'm sorry to hear of your situation and appreciate all of your contributions to this board ! I've done enough of these ACAT transfers, so that I have to have procedures set in place.First, I verify that the in-kind funds are carried by the receiving brokerage. Then, I try to transfer as few in-kind assets as possible, usually reserving the in-kind procedure for closed funds or funds with a large minimum. I liquidate the mutual funds that I'm not transferring prior to starting the ACAT transfer. Ideally for a full account transfer, I'll be transferring 1 or two funds at most and transferring the rest in cash. I don't worry about having funds out of the market, since ACAT transfers take 4 to 5 business days at the most, and the most important thing for me it to grab the assets from the relinquishing brokerage as soon as possible. I will be unfortunately using this procedure in the next week, as my newest brokerage is causing me unnecessary headaches.

There are other actors in the water "space," including my favorite FIW. According to the index author, "FIW, is based on the ISE Clean Edge Water Index and is sponsored by First Trust Advisors." ISTM that companies that make money selling water are generally in the business of protecting what they sell, so they meet sustainability critetia ipso facto. In the event, a 5-year investment in FIW would have outperformed SPY and MOAT and would have left GLFOX grabbing air. All that glitters might be H2O.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1089951/000119312521200586/d578063d497k.htm
(see link for table)
497K 1 d578063d497k.htm AMG FUNDS
Filed pursuant to 497(k)
File Nos. 333-84639 and 811-09521
AMG FUNDS
AMG Yacktman Focused Fund – Security Selection Only
Supplement dated June 25, 2021 to the Summary Prospectus, dated May 1, 2021
The following information supplements and supersedes any information to the contrary relating to AMG Yacktman Focused Fund – Security Selection Only (the “Fund”), a series of AMG Funds (the “Trust”), contained in the Fund’s Summary Prospectus (the “Summary Prospectus”), dated as noted above.
At a meeting held on June 23, 2021 (the “Meeting”), the Trust’s Board of Trustees (the “Board”) approved the following changes for the Fund, all of which will be implemented on July 1, 2021 (the “Implementation Date”): (i) the Fund will change its name from AMG Yacktman Focused Fund – Security Selection Only to AMG Yacktman Global Fund; (ii) the Fund will change its principal investment strategies; and (iii) the Fund will replace its primary benchmark index with the MSCI World Index and remove its secondary benchmark index.
The Board also approved the following fee changes for the Fund, all of which will be implemented on the Implementation Date and will result in the overall reduction of the Fund’s net expenses ratios as compared with the Fund’s current fee structure: (i) the management fee for the Fund will be reduced from 0.87% to 0.71%; and (ii) the Fund’s existing contractual expense limitation agreement with AMG Funds LLC (“AMGF”) will be replaced with a new contractual expense limitation agreement with AMGF pursuant to which AMGF will agree, through at least May 1, 2023, to limit total annual operating expenses (exclusive of taxes, interest (including interest incurred in connection with bank and custody overdrafts and in connection with securities sold short), shareholder servicing fees, distribution and service (12b-1) fees, brokerage commissions and other transaction costs, dividends payable with respect to securities sold short, acquired fund fees and expenses, and extraordinary expenses) of the Fund to the annual rate of 0.93% of the Fund’s average daily net assets, subject to later reimbursement by the Fund in certain circumstances. AMGF pays a portion of the management fee to the Fund’s subadviser for its services...

Hi Sir hank
Sorry for the loss and frustration
We moved everything from (bad trading acct) to Vanguard 3.5 yrs ago, funds over 500k. The process took sometimes over few wks/ repeated phone call, reprocessed loss paperwork, but overall process was painless but stressful.
Do you think you may consider writing to Tpr managers/ or ceo levels. Perhaps may consider retribution/partial paybacks for the loss. Tell them you mean business and give them bad ratings to your family members friends colleague/ investing forums/ business beaureau.
They may loose more business if they do not compromise /meet half ways with your situations
Good luck

In the U.S., the so-called Henry Hub futures prices have more than doubled over the past year to the highest seasonal level since 2014. Inventories are 5.8% below normal for the time of year, the widest deficit since 2019 on a seasonal basis, signaling tighter supplies for next winter.
Did Covid-19 have anything to do with tighter supplies ? If like other commodities, the answer is yes.
Stay Kool , Derf

@hank : thanks for telling your story. May it help others when making transfers.
I can't believe that Fido didn't warn you about the use of funds from your three (small) checks. Recently CD matured & was deposited into a different bank. At that time I was informed that funds from the check weren't available for 8 days. Any deposits from checks , with a limit of over $5400 (?) had that attachment placed on them.
Keep us informed, Derf

We’ve had our accounts with TRP for more than 25 years. We decided to move everything to Fidelity for simplicity and because their customer service is much better. Every time I call TRP I get put on lengthy holds. I like their funds but I can still own them through Fidelity with better service and options.

Same here. Somehow TRP customer support has falling behind other large brokerages and the pandemic does not help. They need to hire more people and upgrade their hardware and bandwidth in order to stay competitive in this business.
Fidelity provides the best balance of what we need online or speaking with a live agent. My asset transfer experience from TRP to Fidelity was done electronically and took 2 weeks for in-kinds transfer.