Vanguard has been a big part of building my net worth, and I’m always watching to see if they are keeping the culture. Barron’s last week ran the article , but it’s probably behind a paywall. Well, the three main areas are high-yield cash savings accounts, financial advice, and fixed-income investing. Let’s explore them all a bit.
Financial advice. I find this the most interesting area of change. Can Vanguard find a way to provide high-quality advice to the masses at a low cost? They have gathered a lot of assets into what they have built already, even though I don’t see it as a high-quality tool yet. Too rigid, and too pricey for what you get.
Vanguard just announced that they are acquiring Altruist, a start-up firm supporting independent financial advisors, for over $4 billion (, ). A big move by new CEO Ramji.
“Altruist’s mission to make financial advice more accessible, more affordable, and help advisers scale their practices, that very much rhymes with what we’re trying to do here at Vanguard,” Ramji said. “That’s really how this acquisition was born.”
Will Vanguard work more directly with independent advisors now? Will they successfully incorporate all this new technology and AI stuff into their in-house advice platform? Will it be a shocking amount cheaper than the competition, spreading the “Vanguard Effect” to portfolio management?
High-yield cash savings. I opened a Vanguard Cash Plus Account a while back, but so far it’s been sitting empty. The current yield is 3.35% APY as of 8/24/26, which is okay in the world of online savings accounts but not special. I know it’s FDIC-insured, but personally I feel equally as safe with a Vanguard money market fund, especially those that are 99%+ made of US Treasuries. The Barron’s article suggests that the main purpose for Cash Plus seems to be to draw in new customers that don’t already have a Vanguard brokerage account.
The current 7-day SEC yield (as of 8/24/26) on the default brokerage sweep is Vanguard Federal Money Market Fund () is 3.62% with a compound yield of 3.68% (best comparison to APY). I can do even better with Vanguard Treasury Money Market Fund (), which is exempt from state income taxes. There’s also now Vanguard 0-3 Month Treasury Bill ETF (VBIL, see below). All of these options are better than Cash Plus.
Will Vanguard expand back into cash management and checking again? Maybe it’s best they don’t.
Fixed-income investing. This also makes sense, especially with a higher yield environment making people branch out to various bond segments, as with fixed income the easiest way to get a higher return without taking on more risk is to simply lower the expense ratio. The math just maths, for both cash and bonds.
Vanguard’s active bond funds charge an average annual fee of 0.10%, compared with an industry average of 0.45% (excluding Vanguard funds), according to data from Morningstar. And 83% of Vanguard active bond funds beat peer 10-year average returns, according to Morningstar.
VBIL has closed its bid/ask spread gap with SGOV and is now also at 0.01%. So you can trade it easily with minimal loss whenever you want a cash sweep option in any brokerage. On top of that, VBIL expense ratio was lowered 0.06%, while SGOV is still at 0.09%. VBIL is the new SGOV replacement in all my various brokerage spaces.
One of the company’s biggest fund launch success stories is the Vanguard 0-3 Month Treasury Bill ETF (ticker: VBIL), which reached $5 billion in assets less than a year after debuting in February 2025. That makes it the fastest-growing Vanguard ETF—fixed income or equity. Devereux notes that as VBIL grew, the company took a page from its traditional playbook and cut the expense ratio from 0.07% to 0.06%. It’s an example, she says, of how, while a lot is changing at Vanguard, “our core mission and focus on clients aren’t.”
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