The teams at seven mutual fund and ETF firms may be sharing some celebratory champagne this week, thanks to new rankings from the folks at two investing publications.

Mortimer J. "Tim" Buckley Vanguard Chairman, CEO

Yesterday, the teams at News Corp's Investor's Business Daily (IBD) and MarketWatch (both part of News Corp's Dow Jones) unveiled their list of the top 25 Most Trusted Financial Companies in 2022. With help from TechnoMetric, in June and July the IBD and MarketWatch folks polled more than 6,500 customers to come up with the list.

The fund firms that landed on the list were:

Vanguard at rank 2 as a fund firm and at 5 as an online broker;

Fidelity Investments at rank 4 as a fund firm, at 10 as a wealth management firm, and at 14 as an online broker;

AllianceBernstein at 6 as a fund firm;

J.P. Morgan at 11 as a fund firm;

Charles Schwab at 13 as a fund firm, 15 as a wealth manager, 17 as an online broker, and 18 for its TD Ameritrade online broker arm;

Victory's USAA at 20 as a fund firm; and

Allspring's Wells Fargo Advantage at 25 as a fund firm.

Susan Warfel, managing editor of IBD, describes the list as "a critical resource for investors, with independent results that reflect the feelings of everyday customers."

To create the list (IBD's third, and its first in partnership with sister pub MarketWatch since IBD was acquired last year by News Corp, MarketWatch's parent), the researchers first surveyed individuals to rank 12 attributes in importance. From that, the researchers created a list of the seven most important areas of trust: product and service quality; ethical business practices and value; commitment to privacy and securing personal data; customer service and treatment; fair pricing; sensitivity to customer needs in the current economic and financial climate; and innovation.

Then the researchers asked individuals to rate the financial services firms they do business with, across eight business lines: auto insurance, banking, credit cards, home insurance, life insurance, online brokerage, wealth management, and asset management. From those ratings, the TechnoMetric team calculated an overall IBD Trust Index.

"This year, the findings show that quality of products, ethical business practices and the protection of privacy are what customers value most," states Mark DeCambre, editor-in-chief of MarketWatch. 

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