Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
Support MFO
Donate through PayPal
Which Brokerage(s) Do MFO Participants Use Most Often For Trading Funds?
vanguard has great bonds selections morgan stanely has free tradings schwab has best research for bonds/stocks and companies but has only BBB- or higher bonds
TD Ameritrade and I cant say enough good things about my experiences with them since my account was transferred as a former Scottrade customer. Their customer service, funds available, ability to continually change my fund trades before the close, and ability to use the cash on my pending sells. The latter two which were not available to me at Scottrade. Plus, I am still paying less on a round turn trade on transaction fee fund than a non transaction fee fund.
For institutional class funds, Fidelity. Access can be easier than at other brokerages. Often Fidelity sells institutional shares with low mins in IRAs (not displayed on the website's fund pages); and transaction fees are low, at $5 for incremental investments and $0 for sales. I also use Fidelity for retail funds where terms are not worse than at other brokerages/fund families. The ability to input the cost of lots and to select lots to sell, even for noncovered shares, is invaluable.
For Vanguard funds, Vanguard. Now that they've removed transaction fees on all ETFs they sell, I might consider using them for ETFs. They also offer PIMCO institutional share classes (e.g. PIMIX) at a low min ($25K), should I choose to go in that direction.
I've got other funds spread out at other institutions, generally for one-off reasons. For example, I've funds at Merrill Edge (not Merrill Lynch) for the sole purpose of boosting my credit card cash back. They're funds I never trade.
Started at E.F. Hutton then went to Edward D. Jones, Pioneer Funds in here some place then A.G Edwards Dain Rauscher, City Group, Solomon Investment finally ended up at Fido for IRA's and Morgan Stanley for stocks and bonds. This has been over 56 years. I'm still here but a lot of my investment companies didn't make it.
With one temporary exception, for mutual funds I go directly to the fund company.
(For a while Vanguard gave me no choice but to deal with their funds through their befuddled brokers in their broken brokerage. I managed to sort that out but it took time.)
In the 1990s I got some Build America Bonds, taxable muni-s with a good interest rate, through Edward Jones. No bad experiences at all with the particular broker —quite the opposite —but I would not buy shares of a mutual fund through EJ. Back before my wife retired, the mutual funds in her 401K were always traded via one brokerage or another. It was always more complicated and time consuming than the clean simplicity of dealing directly with the fund companies. Plus there was a fee.
Comments
Regards,
Ted
Robinhood for ETFs & stocks
I hold funds at WFA but those are set-and-forget positions that I don't need or want to touch.
morgan stanely has free tradings
schwab has best research for bonds/stocks and companies but has only BBB- or higher bonds
i use all three
Mom has fidelity - very easy to use imho
For Vanguard funds, Vanguard. Now that they've removed transaction fees on all ETFs they sell, I might consider using them for ETFs. They also offer PIMCO institutional share classes (e.g. PIMIX) at a low min ($25K), should I choose to go in that direction.
I've got other funds spread out at other institutions, generally for one-off reasons. For example, I've funds at Merrill Edge (not Merrill Lynch) for the sole purpose of boosting my credit card cash back. They're funds I never trade.
(For a while Vanguard gave me no choice but to deal with their funds through their befuddled brokers in their broken brokerage. I managed to sort that out but it took time.)
In the 1990s I got some Build America Bonds, taxable muni-s with a good interest rate, through Edward Jones. No bad experiences at all with the particular broker —quite the opposite —but I would not buy shares of a mutual fund through EJ. Back before my wife retired, the mutual funds in her 401K were always traded via one brokerage or another. It was always more complicated and time consuming than the clean simplicity of dealing directly with the fund companies. Plus there was a fee.
https://www.aaii.com/journal/article/comparing-the-most-popular-online-brokers
Dennis Baran