FYI: A 2015 study of global pension assets from Towers Watson revealed that the 16 largest pension markets in the world increased their allocations to alternative asset classes from about 5% in 1995 to 20% in 2015.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.etf.com/sections/index-investor-corner/swedroe-performance-fees-add-risk

Yes. Merrill went ahead and implemented the DOL rule in retirement accounts effective the original day in June. One still can continue trading as self-directed and pay 6.95 per equity trade and get mutual funds etc. .45 fiduciary stuff provides strategic risk based asset allocation and rebalancing with cheap etfs for those who cant do it themselves and starts at $5000 minimum. .85% service includes a larger fund selection and a human being to talk to... i believe the min is $25k. Note that all models are created by the CIO office and are of institutional quality from open architecture platform. Mutual fund shares within those are either advisory or institutional, depending on the company.
And then there is merrill lynch, a full service brokerage: financial planning, behaviorial, alternatives, financing, etc. All new retirement accounts have been fee-based fiduciary relationships since june, or none. Taxable could be any.
Hope this clarifies the new post-DOL arrangement at merrill somewhat.

This website will help you "get a human" at a variety of different companies when you call:
gethuman.com/phone-number
As an example, I typed in Eversource (my Electric Utility Company) and got this:

Thanks @Ted and @TheShadow for bringing these funds and this article to the board.
I came across another article (I linked below) back in May, but in light of these funds introduction I thought it was worthy of re-posting. The article looks at using an single open ended mutual fund as the sole source for a 4% withdrawal rate in retirement.
VWINX was one of the funds research and the winner of the back test.
Just wondering if MFOers feel that a globally managed fund like Global Wellesley might serve a similar role in a retirement distribution strategy?
Article:
long-term-growing-income-open-end-mutual-fund-possible
MFO discussion on VWINX:
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/33358/vwinx

Robinhood will cover any fees charged by your old brokerage.

Only for your first transfer into Robinhood.
https://support.robinhood.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001535326-Stock-Transfer

Full ACAT transfer from TDA costs $75 (though partial is free). Robinhood doesn't seem to have promotions to accept the new account.
It's easy to get free trades at various brokerages. It's harder getting assets out of an account. Even harder for tax-favored accounts (especially hard for HSA accounts); perhaps that's why you restricted your suggestion to taxable assets.

Robinhood will cover any fees charged by your old brokerage.

It means that the share class has not existed long enough for the star rating, but that this rating comes from another share class. TUHYX started 5/19/2017, the fund started 4/30/17 (TUHIX)

Full ACAT transfer from TDA costs $75 (though partial is free). Robinhood doesn't seem to have promotions to accept the new account.
It's easy to get free trades at various brokerages. It's harder getting assets out of an account. Even harder for tax-favored accounts (especially hard for HSA accounts); perhaps that's why you restricted your suggestion to taxable assets.

@MSF I see your point, but it's $6.95 to sell an ETF outside the NTF platform, not $50, as shares are treated as stocks for commission purposes. Instead of selling, probably the best strategy would be to find a reasonable substitute in the new list to existing ETF positions and just add to your position with that ETF while holding onto the old one--an annoyance for record keeping admittedly, but you wouldn't have to realize any additional capital gains too soon. I agree there is a bit of marketing shenanigans here, but I also think there are some interesting new options on this list and it is true that costs have declined for a number of broad bread and butter index style SPDR ETFs such as total market, emerging, agg bond, small cap, etc that are now transaction free. I don't see it nearly as negatively as the Financial Buff does.

Transfer your taxable assets to Robinhood and you're all set.

@davidmoran: Two reasons, it's 5% premium to NAV, and the high degree of leverage 44% in a rising interest rate enviornment.
Regards,
Ted

Yeah - If that shown 1.74% ER at Lipper is accurate, that’s a whale of an ER biting into your returns. Only way it could possibly be justified (perhaps in part) would be if this is some type of exotic fund which utilizes short selling and/or foreign currencies. Those types of income funds would be expected to cost a little more. I don’t know enough about this one to determine that.
As others have suggested, many fine income funds have ERs far below 1.74%. I happen to like DODIX, which had an ER of around .43% last time I checked. If you’re a bit more aggressive, their DODLX has a higher, but still competitive ER. You won’t see the ER reflected on your statement. It’s mostly hidden from view, but still detracts from fund returns. Worse, some managers will take undue risk with a high ER fund in an effort to compensate for the high ER.
Interestingly, Lipper scores your fund favorably, giving it 4 (out of 5) for total return, consistent return and preservation of capital (but knocks it on expense). Possibly, Lipper knows something I don’t. MaxFunds, on the other hand, rates the fund 32% (poor). Max suggests a best case for the fund in the next year to be +9% and worst case -12%. Consider those to be educated guesses, at best. I’m not telling you to sell it, but think you are correct in looking at similar funds having lower ERs and also questioning whether this kind of fund best meets your needs.

FYI: (This is a more detailed follow-up article.)
Starting Nov. 20, advisors who custody assets at TD Ameritrade will no longer be able to trade any Vanguard ETFs—and many iShares ETFs—commission free. Instead, the funds will carry a standard trading cost, starting at $6.95 per trade.
A handful of ETFs by PIMCO, PowerShares, State Street and VanEck will also be removed from commission-free trading.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.etf.com/sections/features-and-news/td-ameritrade-drops-major-no-fee-etfs?nopaging=1

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/52848/000093247117005506/globalwellesleyincomesupplem.htm
497 1 globalwellesleyincomesupplem.htm VANGUARD GLOBAL WELLESLEY INCOME FUND
Vanguard Global Wellesley® Income Fund
Supplement to the Prospectus and Summary Prospectus Dated October 10, 2017
Subscription Period
Vanguard Global Wellesley Income Fund is holding a subscription period from October 18, 2017, through November 1, 2017. During this period, the Fund will invest in money market instruments rather than seek to achieve its investment objective. This strategy should allow the Fund to accumulate sufficient assets to construct a complete portfolio within a single day and is expected to reduce initial trading costs.
The Fund reserves the right to terminate or extend its subscription period prior to November 1, 2017.
During the subscription period, you may invest in the Fund online (if you are registered for online access), or you may contact Vanguard by telephone or by mail to complete this transaction. Please see the Investing With Vanguard section of the prospectus for more details about requesting transactions.
© 2017 The Vanguard Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Vanguard Marketing Corporation, Distributor.
PS 1496A 102017

@MSF I see your point, but it's $6.95 to sell an ETF outside the NTF platform, not $50, as shares are treated as stocks for commission purposes. Instead of selling, probably the best strategy would be to find a reasonable substitute in the new list to existing ETF positions and just add to your position with that ETF while holding onto the old one--an annoyance for record keeping admittedly, but you wouldn't have to realize any additional capital gains too soon. I agree there is a bit of marketing shenanigans here, but I also think there are some interesting new options on this list and it is true that costs have declined for a number of broad bread and butter index style SPDR ETFs such as total market, emerging, agg bond, small cap, etc that are now transaction free. I don't see it nearly as negatively as the Financial Buff does.

My issue isn't with the State Street changes, but with TDA promoting a new and improved, expanded list, when in fact it had nothing to do with the State Street improvements and dropped funds (not only Vanguard but iShares (what's the excuse there?).
It's the age old claim of "new and improved", where the changes are minimal and potentially harmful to existing customers. At $50 to sell existing ETF shares and possible taxable gains in the process, it could take years or decades for current customers to "benefit" from a drop of a few basis points.

@MSF I would say a 0.03% expense ratio is a pretty good deal on the SPDR Portfolio Total Stock Market ETF (SPTM) and an 0.11% one on the emerging markets fund--SPDR Portfolio Emerging Markets ETF (SPEM)--is the lowest fee currently available I believe on an emerging markets ETF. Also, although no S&P 500 ETF is available, the SPDR Portfolio Large Cap ETF (SPLG) also has a 0.03% expense ratio and I bet it's pretty close to an S&P 500 fund in how it moves. What this really is is an end-run around Standard & Poor's and Russell, which State Street is no longer paying licensing fees to by creating its own indexes. What also is a little trickier is liquidity as these are smaller ETFs than Vanguard's, but then most investors on this board are not institutional investors who need a lot of liquidity. I would advise placing limit orders on these ETFs till they get bigger if bid-ask spreads are wide. But I don't think this is a bad deal on the face of it.

No S&P 500 fund:
https://thefinancebuff.com/td-ameritrade-commission-free-etf-worse.html

I would say there is actually more on the TD platform:
etf.com/sections/features-and-news/state-street-debuts-low-cost-etfs?nopaging=1
And less:
https://google.com/search?source=hp&q=TD+Ameritrade+Drops+Vanguard+From+Revamped+Commission-Free+ETF+Lineup&oq=TD+Ameritrade+Drops+Vanguard+From+Revamped+Commission-Free+ETF+Lineup&gs_l=psy-ab.3...1115.1115.0.2819.2.1.0.0.0.0.102.102.0j1.1.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..1.0.0.0...0.mNwnILJ49qk
Some of the new/improved State Street ETFs on the TD platform actually have lower fees than Vanguard and iShares.

Very interesting thread and thanks to all who contributed. 3 years ago I nixed my advisor who gave me high fees and low returns. Started using VCSH for a "cash" bucket, GTLOX for moderate and GTLLX for growth.
I sold a house 1.5 years ago and all the proceeds still sit in my Vanguard sweep account waiting for a dip (but that's an issue for another thread!) Those proceeds are now my (much too large) cash position, VWELX and VMVFX my conservative positions; POSKX moderate; POGRX, PRGTX and VWIGX growth positions.
I am 50, hoping to avoid completely screwing up, having enough to retire, and learning enough for the confidence to never hire another high-priced advisor.

The "expanded ETF" sheet (first link) says that TDAmeritrade is tripling its commission-free ETFs from 100 to 296.
According to its current website (day before switchover), they offer 152 equity ETFs, 9 sector ETFs, 95 bond ETFs, 112 international ETFs, and 11 commodity ETFs commission free. Maybe my arithmetic is wrong, but that seems to total 379 ETFs. It seems that TDA is reducing the number of commission free ETFs by 20%.
Not to mention that 30 Vanguard ETFs are being dropped: BIV, BLV, BND, BSV, EDV, MGK, VB, VBK, VBR, VCIT, VCSH, VEA, VEU, VGIT, VGLT, VGSH, VIG, VMBS, VNQ, VO, VOE, VOT, VSS, VT, VTI, VTV, VUG, VWO, VXF, VYM. (Some iShare ETFs are being dropped as well, but many are being kept).
The current (old) page says that there are 83 commission-free iShare ETFs. The "expanded ETF" sheet shows 44 (if I counted correctly). For example, AGG is dropped.
In spot-checking, I haven't been able to find a fund in the new list that isn't in the old list. (I'm working off a downloaded pdf file dated Oct. 16, 2017.) That's not to say there aren't any new ETFs, just that a not-so-random sampling has turned up none.