Many or most of the people who post regularly here at MFO invest in mutual funds through a brokerage. And many or most or all have at some time complained about the inefficiencies of one or another brokerage and of the annoyances encountered in dealing with them. My experiences with various brokerages have been similarly frustrating and time-consuming. It is so easy and quick to invest directly in a mutual fund. The cost is less. The time spent is less. If someone is investing in individual stocks or individual bonds a brokerage is the way to go and having many investments in one place is theoretically convenient. But in practice it turns out to be inconvenient.
A friendly reply to a comment I made about this in another thread suggested that later in life having mutual funds and other investments under just a few "umbrellas" is more desirable. I am in my late 70s and seem to be of sound mind, or as sound as I was when younger anyway
.... and Do It Myself is still working out best. Managing 7 mutual fund accounts of my own, my wife's three accounts, and some CDs, Treasury investments etc, is, so far anyway, not at all frustrating and is actually fun. Those who will manage my estate after I die are intelligent and capable and they know what to do.
So what am I missing? Why would I want to pay more fees, spend more time, and spend more hours dealing with agents who messed things up once again? I have dealt with excellent brokerage agents who are intelligent and actually act in the interest of the client. But I have more often encountered incompetent people who cannot possibly act in my interest because they lack the mental capacity to understand my simple needs and preferences or to understand simple English sentences . To be clear, I'm talking about Americans, not telephone agents in Asia.
Comments
1) Money Market sweep accounts
2) Consolidation of investments (and Tax reporting) at 1 location.
1) That's good if the agents are able to follow instructions and move the money from the MM sweep account into a new investment vehicle at the right time. But that does not always happen.
2) I can see how that is helpful to the IRS. How does that help me? My question is sincere, not sarcastic.
With different mutual fund firms, one is still limited to phone or web. And dealing with multiple firms.
As for customer service, no one has monopoly on bad customer service.
I'm not yet retired, just turned 60, so my situation is a bit different than yours. I, like you enjoy managing our finances and my wife is happy to be hands off though at times I wish she showed more interest. That is largely why 12 years ago I consolidated our investments to a brokerage (TDA and then Schwab after the merger), so that if and when anything happened to me healthwise, she would have an easier time wrapping her arms around our finances. We have no children, so there would be no help to step in and assist her in that regard. We have since left Schwab and moved to TRP entirely after TRP offered their Summit Program and the fact most of our investments were through TRP funds anyway.
Both of my wife's parents lived to 91 years of age and for their final 3 years my wife lived with them as their primary care giver and to honor their wishes to remain out of nursing facilities. We were very grateful when they consolidated their finances to just a few accounts as we were not only physically caring for their daily needs, but making sure the bills got paid and taking care of their investments which was made easier for us after the consolidation. Also made doing their annual tax returns easier. Estate matters were also simplified after their deaths because of the consolidation.
Just my 2 cents worth, but by all means keep doing what you are doing as long as you are able and enjoy it, probably helps keep you young!
The following are several issues, at least for me.
1) We have 5 accounts at each discount broker. One joint, 2 Roth IRAs, and 2 Rollover IRAs. If I own 5 funds from 5 different families, think how many more accounts I need to have.
2) If you trade, as I do, it's a nightmare to have several brokerages. If you don't trade often, having one discount broker is much easier. Suppose I own D&C fund directly and want to sell it all this coming Monday and buy instead GOODX. How many hoops do you have to jump thru?
3) Customer service is usually much better at discount brokers (think Fidelity and Schwab) with a lot more services and options. You don't spend more time at discount brokers, you just selected your own way of investing based on the limitation you imposed.
4) You don't need an agent to move your money from selling a fund to MM. Fidelity does it automatically, at Schwab you need to buy the MM.
5) At year end filing taxes is a lot easier and faster for me, the IRS doesn't care.
6) Over the years I bought several funds with commissions at Schwab, I didn't pay any fees, it all depends on the account size and persistence you have, sometimes you just have to ask.
I've found that for the funds that I have invested directly vs a brokerage...I tend to have higher returns as psychologically it is not as easy as clicking a few buttons to sell, trade out in etc etc....but maybe the real reason here is I have more conviction in the investment to start with so that's why I invested directly in the first place
Can't say I have experienced those problems, even at Vanguard.
One comment you made though has me baffled: There is no interaction with agents when making a transfer or trade. Transactions are a couple keystrokes away from being applied instantly for stocks and ETFs, overnight for mutual funds.
At Vanguard, you can buy Admiral class shares that most brokerages don't sell. And at the Flagship level ($1M in Vanguard funds) you get 25 free trades per year of other family funds. That's really a brokerage perk layered on top of buying Vanguard funds directly.
Then there's BRUFX, not available at brokerages at any price.
A minor plus of buying directly is the ability to do Roth conversions (within a single family) by dollar amount rather than in number of shares as brokerages require. Direct ownership of a bond fund often comes with the ability to write checks directly against the fund (though tax implications of that can be messy).
Brokerages often waive loads (NTF) or give you access to lower ER institutional class shares with lower mins (TRP and Vanguard aside). They make bookkeeping a bit easier (single 1099, all assets in one place). They often have better cash management services (bill pay and such).
Regarding executor work - been there, done that. I was certainly capable. It was nevertheless a chore to deal with more institutions, getting more letters testamentary, doing several mailings. It's not so much a matter of feasibility as it is of ease.
My personal preference is to use brokerages (as few as possible) for convenience and access to I class shares. But to buy funds with limited access or to buy cheaper share classes I'll deal directly with the fund house if necessary.
I held funds at as many as 5 different houses at one time. Perfectly workable. Over very long time horizons there was a reluctance to depend on any single
fiduciaryfirm, advisor or money manager - not knowing how they might change or be affected by things beyond their control some day. However, when you’re down to your last 10-20 years of life and when the probable time to shift 100% into cash is 10 years away or less, than the advantage noted of spreading the money around among 4 or 5 different mutual fundfudiciarieshouses ceases to be much of a factor. (Ie : I don’t expect T.Rowe Price or American Funds to go “belly-up” any time in the next 10 years.) Of course, it’s somewhat of an empty argument anyway because even if the firm failed, money inside a fund is supposed to be perfectly safe.One thing having money at 5 different houses did was allow me to move in and out of different sectors pretty much at will. I began spreading my money around after the SEC got involved big-time is seeing that funds prohibit “excessive trading” around 2000 (following some very real abuses). ISTM they went overboard. So, for instance, if I wanted to sell some of my REIT, gold or natural resource holdings only two weeks after increasing the position at one fiduciary, I could lighten up at a different where I held a similar fund without running amuck of anyone’s rules. With ETFs now available and the ability to own / trade stocks or CEFs through a full service broker pretty much at will, that concern has faded. Now (for me, anyway) it’s mutual funds for the really large, dominant long-term positions and ETFs or CEFs for the areas I’m apt to trade.
But, hey - if it works for you don’t change it.
@msf said: ”A minor plus of buying directly is the ability to do Roth conversions (within a single family) by dollar amount rather than in number of shares as brokerages require.”
Nice reminder … I did a “quickie” conversion of 100% of holdings at D&C and Oakmark in early March ‘09. Phoned each on a Friday afternoon as markets plummeted. They explained everything and emailed links to the necessary documents the same day. Got the paperwork into USPS overnight mail Monday morning. Wasn’t a lot of time to be terribly fussy about what to convert, if anyone remembers what the beginning of March 2009 was like.
@Ben - One big advantage of staying with the various houses is ability to trade without worrying about “early redemption” fees (in most cases anyway). With NTF funds at Fido anything sold within 60 days incurs a fee, and with some brokerages it’s 90 days. Also, fund to fund exchanges are a bit faster at a house. Only by about 1 extra day, however, based on my experience with Fido.
RIAs are fiduciaries.
Brokers, many advisors (non-RIAs), insurance agents, call center staff are not fiduciaries.
I'm pretty much always fully invested. I don't wanna take $5k from Peter to give to Paul, just in order to start a mutual fund position. I don't make many changes within the T-IRA. I use the brokerage for single stocks.
The T-IRA is no longer being added to. I am deliberately growing the stuff in the brokerage account. Until I started with single stocks, I found it easy to deal with the different fund houses. There were never very many. DoubleLine, TRP, Mairs & Power.
Maybe that's where the problem is: the brokerage you've been with. After many bad experiences with Vanguard from top to bottom, I left a dozen years ago for Fidelity and have not regretted the choice once. Sure, there are shortcomings at Fido that pop up from time to time, but nothing that's made me want to sprint at top speed in another direction like with Vanguard.
Good luck out there.
And again, when you can walk into an office and talk with someone at the brokerage for guidance, that is a big plus - at least to me. You aren't going to do that at 7 different fund families.
Fidelity's customer service is superior to that of Vanguard in my experience.
I haven't had to contact Fidelity often but don't recall any major issues
except for somewhat long hold times on several occasions.
Here's a summary of my recent Vanguard experience.
A few days ago, I called Vanguard to check account status.
The initial CSR didn't appear to understand my simple question since I had to repeat myself several times.
I was then transferred to someone affiliated with Flagship Services.
This individual couldn't answer my question but mentioned
that he would get an answer for me the next business day.
Fair enough I thought.
I did not receive a response the next business day (which happened to be yesterday).
The Flagship Services rep spent considerable time discussing Vanguard Personal Advisor services.
https://www.investmentnews.com/vanguard-to-leave-pershing-and-self-clear-19277
Indulging myself a bit further ...
Yesterday I stopped by Fidelity to drop off a $30 check. I told the rep to put the money into my premium MMF, not the core fund. Fidelity usually executes this correctly. But when I got home, I looked at the receipt and saw that it went into "Core".
I was in a rush so I didn't check the receipt at the time, nor is this a big deal. But it does show that Fidelity (or anyone else) can get the simplest of transactions wrong.
Finish your weekend with a smile , Derf
Convenience for me while I live? So far I'm not convinced.
The nearest Fidelity office is four miles from my home. There is no parking whatsoever around there. An 8 mile walk to speak with someone does not seem convenient.
Could ride a bike - weather permitting. Less than an hour round trip by bicycle, and the exercise might help extend your period of active participation in the game of investing here on Earth. Yes, our heirs will be deeply begrieved upon our passage. Plenty on their minds. I’d like to think 1 or 2 central depositories for our earthly accumulations would be less stressful to deal with than 7 or 8. However, a lot depends on how investment savvy and up-to-speed they are.
To wit - The above would be only a secondary consideration in the decision to centralize more. The primary concern ought to be whatever works best for you. I’ll tell you the move to a brokerage was bumpy. Began with T. Rowe bouncing a check on what should have been a seamless transition to Fidelity. That was immediately followed by suspension of normal trading privileges for 90 days. Somehow I lived through it all with the gracious help of many here.
No, I'm not buying a bicycle. it would get stolen anyway.