Where do you hold your stocks?

[WRXodus]

Do you go for the ease of having everything in one account or do you base it on where you can get the lowest commissions?

I opt to go for any free trades possible, so most of my holdings will be with Loyal3. I've been looking to pick up shares of PG, JNJ, ABBV, and XOM, which trade for very lost cost through ComputerShare. However, ComputerShare gets you on the back-end with $25 market order sales or $15 batch order sales, but that shouldn't be much of a problem for buy-and-hold. Thankfully, these stocks' dividend-reinvestment fees are paid by the companies (phew).

My experience with ComputerShare has been a bitter one, however, since my company's ESPP is held there. As usual, there's the $25 market order sale, and they charge an additional ~$15 for transfer of sale to a bank account O_O. Though I could not find the fee anywhere on Google, I've been told that they charge $50 for a transfer to another brokerage.

Does anyone else use ComputerShare for investing and could offer some advice on using them for additional investing?

[CritMass]

Xodus, I try to keep my life simple. I have a traditional rollover IRA at Vanguard with a brokerage account component within the IRA, and also have both a Roth and a taxable brokerage account at Chas Schwab. Both are great companies to work with, online transactions are so simple even I can navigate them, and help is always just a phone call away 24/7. Transaction Fees are around $7.95 or $8.95 each at both companies.

[WRXodus]

My retirement accounts are with Fidelity, and the simplicity is definitely worth its weight in gold. The $7.95 commission with Fidelity is normally not very taxing, but I can invest < $750 at a time so the 1% charges will definitely add up quickly. I think the reason why I stay with Fido for my taxable account is because of the continued simplicity and the commission-free iShares ETFs - especially DVY (select dividend) which is my core holding until I can get enough cash together to manually diversify.

[Robandcindy2]

WRXodus,

We have regular and brokerage IRA accounts at Vanguard ($2 trades). Our taxable accounts are at Fidelity. Both are excellent choices. 401K is at JP Morgan/Chase. We're not thrilled with them but they seem to be making improvements (I.e trades are now $2.95 cheaper than Fidelity).

I will say that the Representatives at Vanguard and Fidelity are extremely professional and knowledgeable. Never had a problem with either.

We recently received company stock when our company exited bankruptcy. These were issued via Computershare. What a goat rope. All of my acquaintances performed a one time transfer to Vanguard, Fidelity, etc. as soon as they were able ($25 fee). Computershare is very expensive.

JMHO

Cheers,

Rob

[WRXodus]

Thanks Rob for your input! It's interesting to me to see others' brokerage choices.

I've had good experiences dealing with the customer support at Fidelity, they always seem very happy to talk...almost too happy. I think only once I asked a question that was out of their expertise/realm but that's alright.

Yeah, I totally agree that ComputerShare is a headache and worth passing on in most cases, but if someone can only make very small purchases for a long-term holding, it might not be the worst thing in the world. Huh..I'm surprised the transfer fee is only $25! I was told it was $50, but of course I couldn't find that in any documentation.

[Kerim]

Yeah, I do most of it at Vanguard as well, but that is mostly an artifact of my indexing days. Though I find their brokerage services to be decent as well.

[Dividend Watcher]

My, my wife's and mother-in-laws account are all at TDA. No complication and never have a problem calling although that's rare.

It's seems commissions are higher than Vanguard and Fidelity but, several have told me to call and complain and they'll lower them. Just haven't gotten around to it yet. I trade seldom enough that it's not really noticeable on the returns anyway. My account is the most active just because it has the biggest balance but most trades work out to less than 0.5% expense on the trade. Back in the old days, when TDA was Waterhouse, I used to pay $35 per trade using a touch-tone phone. Even further back, I used to pay $80-85 per trade through my full-service regional broker so $9.99 still seems pretty good to me.

That's too bad about Computershare and their expenses. I was thinking of a UGMA account for the grandkids to stash birthday and Christmas money but not with those fees.

[WRXodus]

Kerim, did you go on the bogleheads' forum at all?

DW, it sure is great to see commissions coming down. Why my dad still invests with Edward Jones and their high commissions, I will never know. /facepalm I've pleaded with him for the past few years to go to Vanguard.

[Be Here Now]

Purely by chance, I stumbled into the best of all possible deals.

When I retired, my 401K was with Wells Fargo. At that time, WF offered a commission rate of $0 (that's right, 0$) for the first 100 trades per year, in perpetuity, if your total balance in all brokerage accounts was above some threshold. My balance qualified. I now have 3 accounts, each with 100 free trades per year - cash, IRA, Roth IRA.

WF has a broad sprectrum of sell side research. I happen to be interested in 2 types of high yielding securities, MLPs and BDCs, and WF offers what I consider to be high quality research for both.

For those who are interested, WF no longer offers this bargain. Trades are now $6 (for accounts valued at $250,000+), which is less than most others I have seen.

However, there is a gotcha (isn't there always?). This is something that interests me but that others in this forum may run away from. UBS has a series of 2x leveraged ETNs. My broker will not allow any of its customers to own the most recent of these. We customers can own BDCL, which started in 2011, but not CEFL or DVHL or MORL.

[WRXodus]

Wow that's a sweet deal! Damn shame it's gone, although I'm not even close to qualifying for it. Hah.

I hope to get around to MLPs and BDCs in the future, but for now I only have BDCL in an Investopedia practice account.