Does Vanguard grant admiral shares only on a per-account basis?
Yes, each of Vanguard's mutual funds looks only at its own shares when deciding to upgrade/downgrade the shares to/from Admiral status. To the best of my knowledge, if you hold a fund in an IRA as well as a separate investment,  the shares are not totaled in deciding whether or not the shares are accorded Admiral shares status; each account is considered separately.  Also, for many funds, the minimum investment value is not $10K but is much larger (used to be $100K a long time ago, but recently the rules have been relaxed somewhat).
Just look at the published annualized returns, which are inclusive of distributions and fees. From the Vanguard website: Average annual returns include changes in share price and reinvestment of dividends and capital gains. "That share class may not have a ticker symbol though ""Black Rock MSCI ACWI ex-US Index"" does have a ticker for ""Investor A"" shares that is BDOAX.  Some funds will have multiple share classes that is a way to have fees be applied in various ways.  Mutual fund classes would be the SEC document about this if you want a government source within the US around this. Something else to consider is that if you are investing in a ""Fund of funds"" is that there can be two layers of expense ratios to consider.  Vanguard is well-known for keeping its expenses low." "There are a few reasons why an index mutual fund may be preferable to an ETF: I looked at the iShare S&P 500 ETF and it has an expense ratio of 0.07%.  The Vanguard Admiral S&P 500 index has an expense ratio of 0.05% and the Investor Shares have an expense ratio of 0.17%, do I don't necessarily agree with your statement ""admiral class Vanguard shares don't beat the iShares ETF""." "Warren Buffett: 'Investing Advice For You--And My Wife' (And Other Quotes Of The Week): What I advise here is essentially identical to certain instructions   I’ve laid out in my will. One bequest provides that cash will be   delivered to a trustee for my wife’s benefit…My advice to the trustee   could not be more simple: Put 10% of the cash in short-term government   bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund. (I suggest   Vanguard’s.) I believe the trust’s long-term results from this policy   will be superior to those attained by most investors… Similarly from Will Warren Buffett's investment advice work for you?: Specifically, Buffett wants the trustee of his estate to put 10   percent of his wife's cash inheritance in short-term government bonds   and 90 percent in a low-cost S&P index fund - and he tips his hat   specifically to Bogle's Vanguard in doing so. Says Buffett: ""I believe   the trust's long-term results from this policy will be superior to   those attained by most investors - whether pension funds, institutions   or individuals.""" If you are looking for an index index fund, I know vanguard offers their Star fund which invests in 11 other funds of theirs and is diversified across stocks, bonds, and short term investments. Right now, the unrealized appreciation of Vanguard Tax-Managed   Small-Cap Fund Admiral Shares is 28.4% of NAV. As long as the fund   delivers decent returns over the long term, is there anything stopping   this amount from ballooning to, say, 90% fifty years hence? I'd have a heck of a time imagining how this grows to that high a number realistically.  The inflows and outflows of the fund are a bigger question along with what kinds of changes are there to capital gains that may make the fund try to hold onto the stocks longer and minimize the tax burden. If this happens, won't new investors be scared away by the prospect of   owing taxes on these gains? For example, a financial crisis or a   superior new investment technology could lead investors to dump their   shares of tax-managed index funds, triggering enormous capital-gains   distributions. And if new investors are scared away, won't the fund be   forced to sell its assets to cover redemptions (even if there is no   disruptive event), leading to larger capital-gains distributions than   in the past? Possibly but you have more than a few assumptions in this to my mind that I wonder how well are you estimating the probability of this happening. Finally, do ETFs avoid this problem (assuming it is a problem)? Yes, ETFs have creation and redemption units that allow for in-kind transactions and thus there isn't a selling of the stock.  However, if one wants to pull out various unlikely scenarios then there is the potential of the market being shut down for an extended period of time that would prevent one from selling shares of the ETF that may or may not be as applicable as open-end fund shares. I would however suggest researching if there are hybrid funds that mix open-end fund shares with ETF shares which could be an alternative here. "I'm trying to understand how an ETF manager optimized it's own revenue.  Here's an example that I'm trying to figure out.  ETF firm has an agreement with GS for blocks of IBM. They have agreed on daily VWAP + 1% for execution price.  Further, there is a commission schedule for 5 mils with GS. Come month end, ETF firm has to do a monthly rebalance. As such must buy 100,000 shares at IBM which goes for about $100 The commission for the trade is 100,000 * 5 mils = $500 in commission for that trade. I assume all of this is covered in the expense ratio. Such that if VWAP for the day was 100, then each share got executed to the ETF at 101 (VWAP+ %1) + .0005 (5 mils per share) = for a resultant 101.0005 cost basis  The ETF then turns around and takes out (let's say) 1% as the expense ratio ($1.01005 per share)  I think everything so far is pretty straight forward. Let me know if I missed something to this point.  Now, this is what I'm trying to get my head around. ETF firm has a revenue sharing agreement as well as other ""relations"" with GS. One of which is 50% back on commissions as soft dollars. On top of that GS has a program where if you do a set amount of ""VWAP +"" trades you are eligible for their corporate well-being programs and other ""sponsorship"" of ETF's interests including  helping to pay for marketing, rent, computers, etc.  Does that happen? Do these disclosures exist somewhere?" Here's a different take:  Look through the lists of companies  that offer shareholder perks. Here's one from Hargreaves Lansdown.  See if you can find one that you already spend money with with a low required shareholding where the perks would actually be usable.  Note that in your case, being curious about the whole thing and based in London, you don't have to rule out the AGM-based perks, unlike me. My reason for this is simple: with 3 out of 4 of the companies we bought shares in directly (all for the perks), we've made several times the dividend in savings on money we would have spent anyway (either with the company in which we bought shares or a direct competitor).  This means that you can actually make back the purchase price plus dealing fee quite quickly (probably in 2/4 in our case), and you still have the shares. We've found that pub/restaurant/hotel brands work well if you use them or their equivalents anyway. Caveats: It's more enjoyable than holding a handful of shares in a company you don't care about, and if you want to read the annual reports you can relate this to your own experience, which might interest you given your obvious curiosity. Fidelity Investments offers Solo 401(k) plans without any management fees. The plan administrator is typically the employer itself (so, your business, or you as the principal manager). You (as the individual employee) are the participant. I found that the Target Date funds for Vanguard have a lower minimum, only $1,000. They are spaced every 5 years from 2010 to 2060. They are available as: General Account, IRA, UGMA/UTMA and Education Saving Account. A DRIP plan with the ETF does just that. It provides cash (the dividends you are paid) back to the fund manager who will accumulate all such reinvested dividends and proportionally buy more shares of stock in the ETF. Most ETFs will not do this without your approval, as the dividends are taxed to you (you must include them as income for that year if this is in a taxable account) and therefore you should have the say on where the dividends go. "A little terminology: Grant: you get a ""gift"" with strings attached. ""Grant"" refers to the plan (legal contract) under which you get the stock options. Vesting: these are the strings attached to the grant. As long as you're employed by the company, your options will vest every quarter, proportionally. You'll become an owner of 4687 or 4688 options every quarter. Each such vest event means you'd be getting an opportunity to buy the corresponding amount of stocks at the strike price (and not the current market price which may be higher). Buying is called exercising. Exercising a nonqualified option is a taxable event, and you'll be taxed on the value of the ""gift"" you got. The value is determined by the difference between the strike price (the price at which you have the option to buy the stock) and the actual fair market value of the stock at the time of vest (based on valuations). Options that are vested are yours (depending on the grant contract, read it carefully, leaving the company may lead to forfeiture). Options that are not vested will disappear once you leave the company. Exercised options become stocks, and are yours. Qualified vs Nonqualifed - refers to the tax treatment. Nonqualified options don't have any special treatment, qualified do. 3.02M stocks issued refers to the value of the options. Consider the total valuation of the company being $302M. With $302M value and 3.02M stocks issued, each stock is worth ~$100. Now, in a year, a new investor comes in, and another 3.02M stocks are issued (if, for example, the new investor wants a 50% stake). In this case, there will be 6.04M stocks issued, for 302M value - each stock is worth $50 now. That is called dilution. Your grant is in nominal options, so in case of dilution, the value of your options will go down. Additional points: If the company is not yet public, selling the stocks may be difficult, and you may own pieces of paper that no-one else wants to buy. You will still pay taxes based on the valuations and you may end up paying for these pieces of paper out of your own pocket. In California, it is illegal to not pay salary to regular employees. Unless you're a senior executive of the company (which I doubt), you should be paid at least $9/hour per the CA minimum wages law." "Yes, the ""based on"" claim appears to be true – but the Nobel laureate did not personally design that specific investment portfolio ;-) It looks like the Gone Fishin' Portfolio is made up of a selection of low-fee stock and bond index funds, diversified by geography and market-capitalization, and regularly rebalanced.  Excerpt from another article, dated 2003: The Gone Fishin’ Portfolio  [circa 2003] Vanguard Total Stock Market Index (VTSMX) – 15%   Vanguard Small-Cap Index (NAESX) – 15%   Vanguard European Stock Index (VEURX) – 10%   Vanguard Pacific Stock Index (VPACX) – 10%   Vanguard Emerging Markets Index (VEIEX) – 10%   Vanguard Short-term Bond Index (VFSTX) – 10%   Vanguard High-Yield Corporates Fund (VWEHX) – 10%   Vanguard Inflation-Protected Securities Fund (VIPSX) – 10%   Vanguard REIT Index (VGSIX) – 5%   Vanguard Precious Metals Fund (VGPMX) – 5%   That does appear to me to be an example of a portfolio based on Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT), ""which tries to maximize portfolio expected return for a given amount of portfolio risk"" (per Wikipedia).  MPT was introduced by Harry Markowitz, who did go on to share the 1990 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.  (Note: That is the economics equivalent of the original Nobel Prize.) You'll find more information at NobelPrize.org - The Prize in Economics 1990 - Press Release. Finally, for what it's worth, it isn't rocket science to build a similar portfolio.  While I don't want to knock the Gone Fishin' Portfolio (I like most of its parts), there are many similar portfolios out there based on the same concepts.  For instance, I'm reminded of a similar (though simpler) portfolio called the Couch Potato Portfolio, made popular by MoneySense magazine up here in Canada. p.s. This other question about asset allocation is related and informative." A broker does not have to allow the full trading suite the regulations permit.  From brokersXpress: Do you allow equity and index options trading in brokersXpress IRAs?     Yes, we allow trading of equity and index options in IRAs based on the trading level assigned to an investor. Trading in IRAs includes call buying, put buying, cash-secured put writing, spreads, and covered calls.  I understand OptionsXpress.com offers the same level of trading. Disclosure - I have a Schwab account and am limited in what's permitted just as your broker does. The trade you want is no more risky that a limit (buy) order, only someone is paying you to extend that order for a fixed time. The real answer is to ask the broker. If you really want that level of trading, you might want to change to one that permits it. Dow Jones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_components_of_the_Dow_Jones_Industrial_Average  NASDAQ: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASDAQ-100 (scroll down) S&P Tricky. From what I can find, you need to be in Harvard Business School, a member of CRSP, or have access to Bloomberg's databases. S&P did have the info available years ago, but no longer that I can find.