This page was researched and built on my own time. Neither DBA Systems
nor Titan is responsible for the information herein. To
the best of my knowledge and ability it is accurate and available from
public sources. Any mistakes are purely my own, so, beware, I may
have been drunk, hallucinatory, hubristic, or lying through my teeth
(no, wait, that was last night!). Opinions are given in a
slightly smaller font -- think of them as whispers.
"I ain't a lawyer, I ain't an accountant, and I ain't gonna pretend
to be one. You gets what you pays for."
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Plan Comparison
100% on 1st 2% 75% on next 4% 50% on next 2% |
100% on 1st 5% |
Fund Comparisons
The following tables compare performance between the DBA set of funds
and the Titan set of funds. Current information may be obtained
by clicking the fund names or charts.
Information in the tables is from the
Yahoo Finance site.
I was planning on also linking to the "official" sites for each fund, but
Smith Barney
does not seem to want to be associated with its own
TRAK (aka Consulting Group Capital Markets) funds.
Vanguard has no such hesitation,
however, and (except for the "Vanguard Retirement Savings Trust") official
information on its funds is easy to find.
In each table, the DBA (Smith Barney TRAK) funds are on the left, and the equivalent Titan (Vanguard) funds are on the right. The expense ratio's for the DBA column are somewhat complex. TRAK has a quoted expense for each fund, but what they don't quote is their 1.5% annual "advisement fee", which they claim is external to the fund, and need not be included in their fee statement. So an individual investor would earn 1.5% less than the stated "total return". DBA's contract with Smith Barney negotiates a special, across the board total fee of 1.76% on all funds, so I also list this as well as the true actual return received by DBA employees. DBA investors in the Government Money fund are probably paying one of the highest fees on any money fund in the country (1.76% is way out of bounds for a reasonable fee on a money fund). Two Vanguard funds have an additional $10.00 annual fee, so if you have exactly $666.67 invested in one of these, it is equivalent to the 1.5% TRAK fee. But if you have $10,000 invested, it would only be a 0.1% fee (which at that point they wave anyway). The Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund (NAESX) has a one-time 0.5% fee paid at purchase. Since the other fees are all paid annually, I did not include this in its table. |
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VMMXX info from Sep98 prospectus
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Information for the tables below was gathered 27 February 1999.
Get current info by clicking fund name or chart.
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eXTReMe
Accesses since 4 April 1999
Page last updated on 11 March 1999
If you are an individual investor in one of the TRAK funds, I have a deal for you. Instead of paying Smith Barney a 1.5% annual advisement fee, you can pay me 0.5%. I'll even give you my advice ahead of time -- transfer your money from the TRAK funds into the equivalent Vanguard funds. You'll earn an average of 1% more a year, I'll get 0.5% that I don't deserve, and Smith Barney will lose money the old fashioned way (driving away customers). |