Thread regarding Chevron Corp. layoffs

A huge minus is CVX has a bare bones service at Fidelity which doesn’t include Full View. Full View let’s you link to other investments so you can see it all. Vanguard had this. Sad.

-26gpo, no matter what song and dance reason Chevron would give you for having switched the ESIP over to Fidelity, the real reason is because there was a benefit for them. The bottom line for them is the single most important thing. I retired from Chevron two years ago and left my 401k intact at Vanguard. Never needed to touch it since I opted for the joint & survivor annuity pension option (I have only income sources through rental property and also through social security). When Chevron announced it was transferring the 401k to Fidelity but leaving the Vanguard funds as is, I wasn’t too worried. I rolled over about 20% of my 401k into a Vanguard IRA and invested it in a Total Stock ETF and S&P 500 Index ETF. Both have been on a tear and earning a serious return. Best of all, the expense ratios for each is only 0.04% which is very low. Typical of Vanguard, which I enjoy. I’ll study the Fidelity like-kind funds to see what their management costs look like. If it comes to pass that Fidelity wants to raise its cost for keeping my Vanguard funds with them, I’ll either switch some money around with Fidelity and rollover the balance back to Vanguard. Thanks for raising this concern.

-25ibq: correct, no cost at time of change over, but under a different admin the rules can change. Vanguards “age” funds are consistently rated 4 stars whereas Fidelity’s equivalent funds are rated three stars (out of five). The difference is mostly due to fees...fidelity’s are three times higher. At both companies there types of “almost index” funds are an inexpensive way to invest and auto-rebalance, but I still would be unhappy to be hit by big new admin fees just to stay invested in my cheaper Vanguard funds. Not the end of the world for me... I will retire not too far down the road and then I can put my money anywhere I want... but it gets to the point of why Chevron switched from Vanguard to Fidelity.... Better deal for me (more investment services etc.) or better deal for them?

Correct, 25lfy. No penalty for rolling over 401k from one institution to another. The comment I made was in reply to the post before mine, from the person concerned about the possibility of Vanguard funds at Fidelity disappearing or the fees going up.

Um, there is never any penalty for rolling a 401k from one provider to another if you follow the rules.

The transition of our ESIP over to Fidelity allowed the keeping of the same Vanguard funds for reasons of simplicity for the participants. Nothing to change, no anxiety, etc. That part was great and the transition went smoothly. I suspect it won’t be too long before we are notified that fees will be going up if we decide to hang on to our Vanguard funds. The notice will give us ample time to think of which like-kind Fidelity funds match the Vanguard Investments and to transfer our money there. If you are at least 59.5 years old by the time you leave Chevron, you should be able rollover your Fidelity account to Vanguard if you like. After that age, there is no 10% IRS penalty for taking distributions.

In the Wall Street Journal:

“In the past year, large financial firms including Fidelity Investments, TD Ameritrade and Morgan Stanley have all made changes to their fees or product lineups that make it more expensive for some customers to invest in Vanguard’s funds. In some cases, these firms have even made it impossible to invest in Vanguard mutual funds”.... I will be very unhappy if I am forced to divest in my Vanguard funds now that our retirement accounts are being admin by Fidelity!

I think Fidelity tools are better overall, and the transfer was easy for me because I already had my brokerage account and an old 403b in Fidelity. That said, I plan to leave most of my Chevron 401k in the Vanguard age fund it was in previously... Vanguard it the index king. I am a big fan of the “he who pays least in fees ends up with the most” idea...or, stated another way, “the market is already fairly priced, so “random” buys are likely to do just as well as actively managed funds”. Your mileage may varying.

Seems like a step backward so far. The tools are idiotic. Cannot link to Vanguard or other funds for full portfolio view.

All the same funds I had in VG have been transfered to fidelity as it is. No change whatsoever. Since I already had a Fidelity net benefits account, I did not have to open a new one.

How do I log in

For what it is worth, if you do not used the Vanguard Managed Funds services, you pay $26/year in record keeping fees. Those fees will stay the same under Fidelity.

"Fidelity has much better service and products than Vanguard". I have my money split exactly between them...not as a plan but rather just happened. Fedelity has better web services and active trader tools, but I would rank Vanguard better for the buy and hold folks. One example is "retirement age" funds, Fidelity consistently three morning star and Vanguard at four. That said, you can buy Vanguard funds from within Fidelity for just a small fee...so no biggie, and Fidelity recently came out with lower cost funds.

For those of you 401k investors, know that Vanguard is among the list of firms with the most Puerto Rico debt exposure, according to Morningstar Direct.

Firm Total Puerto Rico debt

OppenheimerFunds $2,955,781,628.00

Franklin Templeton Invest. $1,142,020,099.00

MFS $676,144,062.00

MainStay $554,738,801.00

Goldman Sachs $511,618,471.00

American Funds $212,453,233.00

Eaton Vance $191,457,544.00

Lord Abbett $149,579,023.00

Vanguard $123,634,227.00

BlackRock $110,219,411.00

Source: Morningstar Direct

I hope you are correct about Fido. I have heard horror stories about all three, Fido, VanG and Schwab. Well, not really horror stories, but some decent inconveniences. One guy I talked to at a consulting firm that switched to Fidelity said they took a couple of weeks to do the transfer, and the entire company lost all the gains for that period (beginning of 2017). On the flip side, if there had been market losses during the black-out period, they would have missed that. So it could have gone either way, but in this case they lost. And the financial group told them that the money would always be "in play" in the market. Well that was not the case. It was from T-Rowe P. to Fidelity. I imagine that either one could have been responsible for the sluggish transfer, or both.

Fidelity has much better service and products than Vanguard.

To the recent poster. I am glad that worked out for you with Fidelity. I agree and you have to do some homework yourself to see what best works for each of us as individuals and determine what best works for your retirement and what Firm you feel comfortable with. I liked Charles Schwab as well but ultimately decided to stick with VG. Good luck to all whether retired or not. Also saw Mike Wirth is now CEO as of Feb 1st 2018. As with anything more changes will be coming for both employees and retirees as Mike takes over. Good Luck to Mr. Watson.

The first thing that I did when I retired from Chevron, ironically enough is transferred my account to Fidelity, as a rollover. The difference is customer service and fund selection - including any Vanguard fund that you could possibly want, is phenomenal compared to Vanguard. Of course, I have much more in equities now and I am crushing the indexes, but I suppose that's just luck and some decent newsletter research. I am thoroughly pleased with Fidelity, their service and selection. I am sure you guys will be happy to when all is said and done and the learning curve is over.

Oh and P.S. I did setup an NUA or Taxable Brokerage Account as well. This money is Self Managed by myself. The rest of the Indexes are Managed by VG and one other thing I forgot is I have a personal CFP assigned to my Account and we meet Quarterly or when ever I have questions I can also use Secure Email. If I think of anything else I’ll post it.

As a Chevron Retiree I’m totally satisfied with VG and it’s low cost Fees. The Indexes work as advertised and I get first class response from Vanguard! I am in six Indexes both EU and S&P as well as Small Cap and Bonds. These are all Admiral Funds so the Fees are even lower than other Services Vanguard offers. So take your pick I’ve already moved everything out of Chevron including my Lump Sum into VG. I sleep just fine at night.

I just got a letter about it today too

Just got the official announcement today, and looking at the website it appears that our investment options aren't changing at all, in other words, we'll still be able to own and buy the Vanguard Institutional funds in your Fidelity account. The only real difference is that you'll be logging into Fidelity to see your accounts, change options, and make trades. A curious arrangement, really. For retirees, it seems like the biggest thing to be aware of is that from Dec. 18 through the week of Jan 7 for brokerage accounts and Dec. 26 through the week of Jan 7 for non-brokerage accounts, you won't be able to make any withdrawals. So if are going to make any end-of-the-year withdrawals (for RMDs or whatever) you need to plan in advance.

Thanks @2qeh. I’m waiting to see what happens. You are right that Chevron and Fidelity will likely establish a set of core funds for us. If we chose to invest in any other funds, there will be a Brokerage Option or we can pay higher expense ratios to invest in supplemental funds without needing to pay brokerage fees. It’s typical to see our funds automatically transfer over to a like-kind fund during the rollover period, so our asset mix stays the same. I only hope the low expense ratios we enjoyed with Vanguard is repeated with Fidelity.

@2oqw - It's not at all clear that you will be able to keep your old Vanguard funds if we move to Fidelity. First, Chevron generally limits which funds we can hold in our 401Ks unless you pay for a brokerage account, but more importantly, through our 401K we had access to Vanguard Institutional shares. These had especially low expense ratios (perhaps the lowest in the business) and are only available to us because Vanguard is Chevron's 401K administrator. It's not clear the Chevron will be able to continue to offer those shares or whether Fidelity has comparable ones. I would hope the Chevron negotiated with Fidelity for at least as good a deal for us, but who knows? I know retirees who rolled their lump sum directly into the Chevron 401K just so they could take advantage of the availability of these special funds.

People write a whole lot of stuff on here under the cloak of anonymity which means you shouldn't take any of it seriously. It's just a load of old bull that's all.

What's with all the insults and making fun of people just because they didn't live a privileged, refined Ivy-league life? Not all positions at CVX require college degrees, or even close to it, but are still critically important to the entire process.

Fidelity is no better or worse than Vanguard. You can still obtain Vanguard funds through Fidelity. Some people prefer one or the other. There are horror stories with both. Do some research on your own. Don't believe everything that you read here.

"They don't realise cuz they too dum-." is how one poster below put it.

I couldn't have phrased it more eloquently myself - LMAO!

@PoYwwqh-2oce, Yes you are so right, I second that opinion, agree 100%. And it's just wonderful to have you right here where you belong. Welcome!

They don't realise cuz they too dum-.

Vanguard is the leading retirement invest company on earth. The gold standard. It is a terrible sign that CVX would change this to a crummy bunch of sales hacks at Fidelity. Rest assured this was a Supply Chain victory to cut corp costs. Your benefits just took another cut. Only you don't realize it.

This is a site for intellectual pygmies if ever there was one.

Can someone here, who is an active employee, confirm the subject of this thread? Did Chevron announce that Fidelity will be the new trustee of the ESIP 401k plan? When and how was the announcement made? When does this all take place?

@1pmd, sounds like you’ve been schooled and like the petulant child that you are, need to lash out (more than once), as I have read so far. Raise the mental bar, son, and come back with a mature rebuttal.

The average IQ for these posts is very, very low that's for sure.

Sorry @1xlz, I had to read past your gibberish and lodge my comment. If Chevron will be transferring the ESIP 401k to Fidelity, it’s a no-brainer there’s a benefit to be had for its 401k participants. Win for the Chevron employees and for Fidelity. And of course, it’s a loss for Vanguard. I made it short and sweet for you, easy to mentally digest.

1zaw You're right. What took you so long to come out and whine, anyway?

Took a while for the pathetic, childish insults to come out. Usually with Chevron its 2nd or 3rd post at the latest.

Don't be such cry babies and get on with it. Bunch of whiners.

Once Chevron Corporation (and other large companies) withdraws their employee's ESIP account from Vanguard, rest assured their expense ratios, fees and trade commissions are likely to go up for everyone else keeping their money there. Other the other hand, once Chevron Corporation (and other large companies) transfers their mega-millions over to Fidelity, the expense ratios, fees and trade commissions are likely to come down further.

Fidelity customer service is much better than Vanguard. Vg seems to be overwhelmed with the influx of money pouring in index funds over the past few years. When I call up Vanguard to ask questions, often I get incorrect information and feel as if I am talking to an intern. Additionally, Vg is very siloed b/w their mutual funds and brokerage support. I would prefer dealing with Fidelity CSR anyday.