FYI: Puerto Rico's governor says the island's $72 billion debt load is too big to pay. OppenheimerFunds Inc., the largest mutual-fund holder of the bonds, disagrees.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20150711/FREE/150719987?template=printart

What's a bank account :-)
Seriously, the only bank accounts I have are for other benefits - a local bank account ($250 balance) to get a safe deposit box and a legacy BofA eChecking account ($0) to get a 10% bonus on my credit card cash rewards.
Bill pay, ATM, checking - all out of my brokerage accounts. Merrill Lynch pioneered CMAs a third of a century ago.
Yes, you can have VG transfer money to a bank account. Every time you get a dividend from a fund, you'll need to check that it has hit your settlement account, then transfer that amount to your bank. (VG will automate transfers, but you can't set it up for a variable amount, such as the dividends from a fund.)
I have VG fund dividends deposited directly and automatically into my non-VG brokerage account (where I have full CMA features), but that's because they are in VG fund accounts, not a VG brokerage account.
BTW, there can be a benefit to using a "real" bank. Some financial institutions won't set up links to brokerages. Capital One 360 (not to be confused with Capital One) would not set up a link to Fidelity (Fidelity uses UMB as its bank for checks, but the account doesn't show up as a "real" bank). But Capital One 360 had no problem setting up a link to Schwab bank (not a Schwab brokerage account), because that is a real bank.

"Yet, for their own selfish interests a tiny few think this is a social site where anything goes including tabloid material, politics, religion, or whatever. That just drives away folks who come here for mutual fund news, commentary, and fund views."
@Ted- Well, lessee now... Scott's current post "Current Republican Poll Shows A Rather Surprising Leader.... " currently has 304 views and 33 comments*. Sounds like that one attracted quite a few more than it "drove away". Do you have any, you know, um, "facts" I think they're called, to support your statement?
*Edit/Add: Now 316 and 40. We're losing participants at an astonishing rate, Ted. That "tiny few" is just killing us!

Vanguard used to give you one account number for Vanguard MFs and a different account & number for investments bought thru the brokerage. Last year they consolidated - Vanguard funds, other family funds, stocks, etfs, etc. are all accounted for under one account/number now. (Of course you'll have more than one account if you have, for example, a taxable account and an IRA with them.) The consolidation made V. just like Fidelity in that regard.

This has some drawbacks. From the brokerage account, you cannot direct dividends into an outside account; you have to take the dividends in your core/settlement account and manually move them to your outside account. You cannot do a Roth conversion in dollars, you must specify shares. (This may matter in some states where IRA distributions, including Roth conversions are state tax exempt only up to a specified dollar amount.) And you can't write checks from a MM account within a brokerage.
That last one could be significant, since Vanguard does not provide cash management services (called a VanguardAdvantage account) for any price until you reach Voyager Select ($500K in Vanguard fund) level. Then they charge you $30/year, until you reach Flagship level ($1M).
See: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/whatweoffer/stocksbondscds/feescommissions
(click on fees for other services).
VanguardAdvantage description: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/help/FAQVAAContent.jsp
(Note: even though the fee/commission schedule is dated Jan 2015, I cannot find any application for a Vanguard Advantage account.)

Ameritrade is a delightful 180 day holding period.... used to be 90.

Depends what kind of account you have with them. 180 days seems "right" for a taxable brokerage account, but their terms are different for IRAs and for HSAs (which seem to be considered IRAs there for most purposes).
For example, here's the fee schedule for a relative's account (90 days):
http://www.tdameritraderetirement.com/forms/ACS1009.pdf

Hi @Maurice
At this house, too. Four IRA accounts all wrapped inside their our brokerage account.
The whole thing is so seamless for functions for each account. Obviously, one may travel the monies here and there without a blink; some stocks, some etfs, regular active managed funds.....a whatever function that has always been smooth for us.
We also like the layout as with the screener:
We've had monies at Fido since the late 1970's.....no complaints.
Take care,
Catch

Hi @AndyJ
Have not checked; but just from the top of the head recall.
The 60 day rule "sale" holding period for some funds

Ameritrade is a delightful 180 day holding period.... used to be 90.
My reaction when they changed that?

Vanguard used to give you one account number for Vanguard MFs and a different account & number for investments bought thru the brokerage. Last year they consolidated - Vanguard funds, other family funds, stocks, etfs, etc. are all accounted for under one account/number now. (Of course you'll have more than one account if you have, for example, a taxable account and an IRA with them.) The consolidation made V. just like Fidelity in that regard.
At the beginning of 2014, the V. brokerage also got rid of its absurd 6-month no-redemption-fee holding period for non-V. mutual funds, matching Fido's 60-day rule.

Correct me if I'm wrong . Last year I went from Vanguard account to Vanguard brokerage account. If I didn't do this switch , it was going to happen at a later date, so I just went ahead & ( got'er ) done !! This happen in April of 2014.
I guess next time I check into Vanguard I should see if I'm the proud owner of 1 or 2 accounts.
Have a good weekend, Derf

IMHO, physical access to brokerages is overrated. At Fidelity, if I have any complex issues, it seems they always need to call the back office - something I could just as easily do without standing there waiting for the rep to talk with someone on the phone.
Both T. Rowe Price and Vanguard seem to have originally set up their brokerages as a convenience for their fund investors. Comments you read from the nineties will reflect this. VBS (Vanguard Brokerage Services) changed clearing houses several years ago (it used to be Pershing, it is now self-clearing, like Schwab, Fidelity, etc.) More recent reviews reflect this improvement.
In contrast, T. Rowe Price still uses Pershing, as does TIAA-CREF, and many smaller brokerages. I know BobC has not had kind words about Pershing. My experiences with Pershing are more mixed, but at this point I wouldn't consider Pershing a plus.
T. Rowe Price, like most brokerages, gives you more perks as your total AUM increase. (At $100K, you get free M* membership.) In contrast, Vanguard only counts Vanguard investments (Vanguard funds, Vanguard ETFs, Vanguard annuities, etc.) toward your level of service. At $1M (Flagship), they'll give you 25 free TF fund trades/year.
As a fund investor what would attract me to Vanguard is their access to some institutional class shares at lower mins than you find elsewhere (e.g. PIMCO @ $25K vs. $100K at most other brokerages).
You asked about div reinvestment. Both brokerages do, here are their pages:
Vanguard dividend reinvestment
T. Rowe Price disclosures (open the 2nd to last disclosure at the bottom of the page)

Regarding liquidity risk, this is a reason why I (and others) suggest that an annuity be purchased only to cover essential cash flow needs, i.e. those expenses which you cannot reduce.
Reiterating one of the risks in the article cited by Lewis - inflation risk. I don't think it's as much of a risk for longevity insurance (assuming you buy enough to deal with inflation up to the point at which it starts paying), because that income stream won't go on for decades. But an immediate annuity could run for several decades, if you've got good health and luck.
Regarding insurance company risk - as a general rule of thumb, an insurance company cannot be rated higher than its sovereign's debt - thus S&P doesn't rate any insurer AAA. (S&P says that it's because they invest in - gasp - Treasuries.)
That article lists the 5 AAA insuers in 2011. That list hasn't changed much since then:
NYLife, TIAA-CREF, Knights of Columbus, Northwestern Mutual, and USAA.
(I got both that list and the quirk about sovereign debt from a TIAA-CREF rep I spoke with a few years ago; he said he had to explain to people why TIAA-CREF wasn't AAA rated anymore.)
Here's a 2014 list - it looks like Fitch downgraded USAA to Aa1 from Aaa (no other ratings agency made a change), otheriwse, all the usual suspects are still top rated. It also has Berkshire Hathaway and Gen Re in this top group.
Any of these insurers IMHO would be fine. I especially like TIAA-CREF because unlike the other insurers, it does not have a separate subsidiary in NY to comply with the more stringent NYS reserve requirements. I believe you get that same higher standard across all 50 states with this insurer.

Assuming you are talking about an immediate fixed income annuity, the biggest disadvantage are the low record interest rates and hence they aren't paying out much of anything. The way to go is a longevity annuity aka deferred income annuity. However what I leaned there is you can't buy any of these in a retirement account past a certain age generally around 68 to 68 and 1/2. There is a new product, a Qualified Longevity Annuity Contract, that you can purchase in an IRA in older age. This product has some advantages such as being exempt from your annual RMD. Personally, I would only buy an annuity from New York Life because of the company's history of financial stability.

This sums the risks up pretty nicely:money.usnews.com/money/blogs/on-retirement/2010/12/16/3-risks-of-purchasing-a-fixed-annuity
The only thing I would add is there can also be a liquidity risk as you are locking your money up in the annuity and won't necessarily have access to it in case of emergency.

@bee I think I'd like a little more "downside worked into the price," :) but definitely a sector to be moved to the top of the Watch List. By year's end, should have a better lay of the land.

http://www.crossingwallstreet.com/archives/2015/07/energy-resumes-downtrend.html

@MFO Members: You better believe it take a lot of work to maintain MFO as the #1 Mutual Fund Website. Yet, for their own selfish interests a tiny few think this is a social site where anything goes including tabloid material, politics, religion, or whatever. That just drives away folks who come here for mutual fund news, commentary, and fund views.
Regards,
Ted

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
WSJ Slant:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-stock-futures-rally-on-greece-deal-hopes-1436531195
Bloomberg Slant:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-10/u-s-stock-index-futures-advance-as-greece-china-concerns-ease
Reuters Slant:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/10/us-markets-stocks-idUSKCN0PK17A20150710
MarketWatch Slant:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stock-futures-leap-on-optimism-for-a-greek-deal-2015-07-10/print
WSJ Markets At A Glance:
http://markets.wsj.com/us
Sector Tracker:
http://www.sectorspdr.com/sectorspdr/tools/sector-tracker
Current Futures: (Up Big)
http://finviz.com/futures.ashx

Good point. I hadn't noticed that. Now that you mention it, I see that while most papers report things like Dow's worst day, biggest loss, etc., you do occasionally see "worst loss", e.g.:
Marketwatch: "The Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its worst one-day point drop ..."
USA Today: "The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.6% to 17,718.54 in posting its worst point loss ..."
Morningstar: "The Nikkei ended down 3.1% at 19737.64 for its wost decline in percentage terms ..."

Our risk and return performance metrics through quarter ending June 2015 have been posted to the Search Tools, including updates to Three Alarm, Honor Roll, and Great Owl funds, and well as Dashboard of all funds profiled.

The $272M bond fund mentioned in the article that followed Gross to Janus (a UK fund), effective July 6th:
Old Mutual Total Return (USD) Bond Fund
http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/funds/snapshot/snapshot.aspx?id=F0GBR04N74

FYI: The Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund suffered its worst monthly redemptions since bond legend Bill Gross started managing it in October.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20150709/FREE/150709902?template=printart