In your opinion, how do the various brokerages compare with each other when buying transaction fee mutual funds. I especially like Etrade's no transaction fees at all for mutual funds approach! That said, some funds are only available at Fidelity or Schwab. After the inital purchase, do either Fidelity or Schwab have a reduced price for additional purchases of a mutual fund that one already owns? Are there other brokerage platforms out there that you might recommend that do a good job for no-load fund investors through their platform?
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Here's the thread that was started when E*Trade first switched to $0 TF pricing.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/60484/anyone-buying-funds-at-e-trade
Unfortunately, Firstrade does not seem to provide any sort of fund list if you don't have an account. (I have a login from an account I closed ages ago that enables me to check fund availability by individual ticker, though I cannot put through a test trade.)
Fidelity generally allows you to purchase additional shares for $5/transaction using its automated investing system. You schedule purchases starting at least a couple of days in advance. Then after your initial trade executes, you cancel the remaining scheduled trades. Occasionally a fund may not be "eligible" for automated investing. Also, Fidelity offers some institutional funds with lower mins in IRAs than Fidelity requires in taxable accounts. No way (that I know) to see this except with an existing IRA account or by calling.
Schwab tends to set the lowest mins for opening a new position.
If you have $1M invested with Vanguard (Flagship customer level), Vanguard will give you 25 free TF fund trades per year. NTF funds don't reduce your allotment of free trades. Many people dislike Vanguard's interface. I'm okay with it - it is fully functional. Vanguard's service however is very poor, and it recently imposed several fees and rules that many including me found disturbing.