Brokerage--Maybe a move?

[rayray]

Well, I've been contemplating moving my assets out of Vanguard. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE VANGUARD, they are the only mutual fund company that works like a credit union and I'm a big fan of credit unions for various reasons. However, I'm thinking about closing my last non 401k mutual fund, Vanguard U.S. Healthcare Fund. It has been great to me over the last 20 years; although, aside from 401k plan mutual funds they kind have run their course for me as an individual investor, DGI investments are for the foreseeable future. Not only do I prefer the hands on control of investing in quality individual stocks with our money, I enjoy reading about the companies I invest in such as articles, financials and the company's web site. It's like a hobby. I know, I better pick up gardening or fishing, maybe bike riding again! Something to get me out of the house more lol.

My Vanguard trades are $7 as long as I have an "x" amount in Vanguard investments, without the last VG fund in my account, those $7 trades go away causing the account unfeasible to maintain due to trade costs. Let's put it this way, the extra cost would drive me insane.

Doing research, it's come down to two brokerages, Merrill Edge and Fidelity. I was really leaning towards ME until I looked at Fidelity and WOW was I impressed with their changes/updates!! My company's 401k account is with Fidelity and I do have an inactive brokerage with them making the move to have everything under one house again very appealing. Seeing all investments except for bank accounts is a really nice feature that helps my financial planning, imho. Sure, I'd be going from $7 trades to $7.95 dollar trades but Fidelity's layout and research tools are bar none, very impressive. Having said that, getting an "x" amount of free trades through ME is also very impressive, because I do enjoy saving a dollar! A dollar saved is a dollar earned.

I never used anything other then Vanguard and Fidelity (old platform), I've been with both for 20 years.

I would be moving two accounts from Vanguard, one brokerage and one ROTH IRA.


Having only used the old Fidelity platform years ago what are your opinions on ME and or Fidelity?

I know a few of you guys use ME but haven't heard anyone talking about Fidelity.

Thank you in advance!!

[Rasec]

I don't really like the ME platform, it's cumbersome, confusing, hard to pull data, takes years to refresh information, etc... but, they offer free trades, and no one can beat that to date, so I love them!!

http://info.bankofamerica.com/preferred-...s/details/

Iv'e never tried Fidelity.

[rayray]

Rasec--thank you for the info.


I played around with what I could on ME, without being a customer, and at this time I don't believe I would go this route for the simple fact I have my kplan with Fidelity. I read most of the reviews and it looks like one couldn't go wrong with the top 10 online brokerages, specifically the top 5. I was surprisingly shocked by the large amount of negative reviews and the horrible experiences, specifically, about account transfers and 401k plan to IRA conversions, my gawd, they were making me go into convulsions to the point my eyes were spewing blood all over the laptop. I never had this problem for the simple fact I always first opened up an account with a small deposit rather then opening up an account and transferring a large amount all in one shot, I've done this with brokerages, banks, and credit unions. After the account was established I would then transfer the full balance without any hiccups. I also do this because I'm the type of guy who likes to tip my toes in the water before I fully commit to jumping in the pool. In other words, it's nice to use the new service before dumping the old one completely.



Now, since I have my Kplan and an empty idle brokerage account with Fidelity, I was able to play around with all their fancy updates that didn't exist several years ago. Even though I was able to use and understand everything just fine I'd be lying if I didn't say the amount of information all in one spot was not overwhelming to the point you can loose yourself opening link after link after link after link. I'm going to have to play around with it a bit more before I fully commit and close the Vanguard account. To be honest, even though Vanguard is not as advanced as ME and Fidelity the watered down clean non cluttered look of Vanguard is very appealing as a buy and hold investor such as myself. I suppose I have to ask myself how badly do I want to completely cash out all mutual funds outside of the Kplan, that is the question that I have to answer. Vanguard has been really good to me over the years and I never appreciated that clean simple platform until I played around with these other brokerages.


(Kerim--feel free to combine this thread with "Favorite Brokerage?" I have no idea why I made another thread, I knew the other one existed)

[DividendGarden]

I really like Vanguard for our ETF's. We also have Fidelity & Charles Schwab for IRA's and brokerage accounts, and Computershare for DRIP's. I think they're all good, and we like to have our accounts spread out a bit.

[rayray]

Okay, after looking at everything long and hard, considering my options I decided to keep the Vanguard account. The main reason is that for the time being I will stay invested in the Vanguard U.S. Healthcare Fund, it has been a great investment over the last 20 years and I don't anticipate that changing over the next several years. I'm not only a Vanguard fan but I also have my utmost respect for the Wellington Management team. It's also in a sector that I don't really plan on or want to venture into on a DGI individual stock basis. For some reason, when looking at companies to invest my hard earned dollars I tend to shy away from the Healthcare sector in broad terms, quite frankly, I don't particularly enjoy it as much as looking at other sectors. I know, numbers are numbers; however, I personally need an interest beyond numbers on a spreadsheet. I'm sure there are perfectly sound healthcare mutual funds out there, but since I have no complaints with Vanguard that's where I decided to stay "Lazy" when concerning that diversification within the portfolio. So, at this time, the Vanguard account stays put.

If I was going to dump the Vanguard U.S Healthcare Fund and loose my $7 privileges, I would move to Fidelity as my brokerage. Their investment tools are amazing!!