What does your brokerage do well?

LLJB

news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=665074

Last week M* asked what you would like your brokerage or fund company to do better and the link is the summary of the comments they received. I'd like to know which brokers or fund companies do a great job of addressing your concerns.

My accounts are at E*TRADE and they've been really good about helping me with any technical issues I've had. They even waived the fee for processing a trade by phone when I wasn't able to make it work online. They have made funds available at my request, although in these cases I was asking about newer funds from a fund family they already carried. While I'm happy with what they offer and the cost, I'm particularly pleased with the service I've received when I call or write a message.

VintageFreak

In my experience E*Trade has been the worse brokerage. Next worse is Ameritrade. Followed by Merrill Lynch. I'm not going to even talk about E*Trade and Ameritrade. Too painful.

Merrill Lynch needs to get their portfolio positions screen right. I've told them several times it sucks.
I wish Vanguard would get their "rounding" right. They mess up big time. Their calculator rounds one way and the rest of the worlds another.

Schwab, Fidelity, Scottrade win by keeping things simple. Note to Schwab. Don't do too much and mess things up. Merrill Lynch has already done that.

Old_Joe

I'm quite happy with Schwab, also.

rjb112

VintageFreak said:

In my experience E*Trade has been the worse brokerage. Next worse is Ameritrade. Followed by Merrill Lynch. I'm not going to even talk about E*Trade and Ameritrade. Too painful.

I've been happy with TD Ameritrade. One thing I particularly like about them is that they can often get you into an institutional share class of a fund whose A shares carry a load. This has allowed me to invest in several load funds without paying the load. Often the institutional share class required no minimum investment, and of course the expense ratio was far lower than the A shares.

They have a mutual fund department, and you can call them and ask about getting into an institutional share class with low minimums. On one occasion, they even called the mutual fund company to see if it was ok. TD Ameritrade can be flexible in some ways that a huge company cannot be.

Been with them a very long time, and never had a single problem.

Surprised @VintageFreak that your experience was otherwise.

katman

Been with Schwab since 1982 and well satisfied.

VintageFreak

rjb112 said:

VintageFreak said:

In my experience E*Trade has been the worse brokerage. Next worse is Ameritrade. Followed by Merrill Lynch. I'm not going to even talk about E*Trade and Ameritrade. Too painful.

I've been happy with TD Ameritrade. One thing I particularly like about them is that they can often get you into an institutional share class of a fund whose A shares carry a load. This has allowed me to invest in several load funds without paying the load. Often the institutional share class required no minimum investment, and of course the expense ratio was far lower than the A shares.

They have a mutual fund department, and you can call them and ask about getting into an institutional share class with low minimums. On one occasion, they even called the mutual fund company to see if it was ok. TD Ameritrade can be flexible in some ways that a huge company cannot be.

Been with them a very long time, and never had a single problem.

Surprised @VintageFreak that your experience was otherwise.

Honestly my bad experience with Ameritrade was not with mutual funds. It was when I used to have hair...

With E*Trade...I will not buy a pencil from them.

Tony

Has anyone had experience trading ETFs with low cost brokerages such as TradeKing and OptionsHouse?

Kaspa

Very satisfied with Schwab and Fidelity. Professional, helpful, good websites, good research, fund availability! Settled at these two after going through TD Waterhouse, Scottrade, WellsTrade.

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Tony

Here's another comparison:

http://brokerage-accounts.findthebest.com/compare/11-20/Lightspeed-Trading-vs-Just2Trade

rjb112

Kaspa said:

Very satisfied with Schwab and Fidelity. Professional, helpful, good websites, good research, fund availability! Settled at these two after going through TD Waterhouse, Scottrade, WellsTrade.

What didn't you like about TD Waterhouse, Scottrade, WellsTrade?

Kaspa

It has been a while, so don't remember all the details. Move from TD Waterhouse to Scottrade was because of lower trading commissions. Moved from Scottrade to Wellstrade again because of 100 free trades (still have a small Roth at Scottrade). Scottrade moved a number of funds of interest from their NTF list, made mistakes on my 1099, kept making changes till couple of weeks before tax return date, etc. Moved from Wellstrade to Schwab due to bad service, nickel-and-diming and poor research tools. Schwab won me over right from my first meeting in their local branch. The person was genuinely helpful, took the time to answer all our questions (not feeling rushed at all) and personally took care of all needed documentation. Another factor in my decision was how Schwab answered some basic questions from novice investors like my wife (she is a joint account holder) and my daughter (opened a new one). This is important in the longer term in case they need to make independent decisions in future. I never felt the same comfort with TD Waterhouse (don't know how they are as TD Ameritrade), Scottrade or Wellstrade.

One of my previous employers had 401k at Fidelity, which had exposed me to their customer service, which is also excellent. Basically that account was rolled over into an IRA and is still at Fidelity.

JohnChisum

I have an account with Schwab and have gotten nothing but excellent service from them. On something simple like getting another debit card, it was handled promptly and the card was in my hands in a few days.

I also have a account with American Century Brokerage which is actually Pershing. No issues with them either.

Mark

Separate me from my money. Oh wait, that's on me and my investment decision making process.

I have had accounts with Fidelity for over 35 years with nary a problem. Fast, efficient, courteous customer service all the time and nearly all hours of the day.

I also have accounts with Scottrade. My complaints here are minor such as they are. Their website presence, tools and navigation seem like something out of the 80's and they will not reinvest dividends on equity holdings unless they are distributed in shares only. For some the reinvestment issue may not be important but if you are looking to build up a position slowly over time having to pay a commission every time you want to add a few shares can be a hassle and expensive.

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LLJB

WOW!!! @Maurice, I haven't seen a comment about Brown & Co forever!! I was a very happy customer as well but stuck with E*TRADE after the buyout. I've actually been very happy and feel like I've received great service. There have been a few times when I've thought about opening accounts elsewhere because of a specific fund I was interested in, but never did it for one reason or another, usually cost or convenience.

Thanks to everyone for the input!!! I find the negative comments I read most of the time good to know, but I think it's important to pay attention to the things they do well too.

VintageFreak

JohnChisum said:

I also have a account with American Century Brokerage which is actually Pershing. No issues with them either.

JC, I actually didn't know that. How are the NTF options at Pershing? And do they offer any load waived funds ala Schwab and Fidelity?

JohnChisum

I haven't dealt much on that end with them. Their website is not very user friendly. When I rolled a retirement account over to them a few years back I opted to go with the brokerage to have access to other funds conveniently. There are NTF choices but I am guessing not as many as Schwab or the others. I bought my Matthews funds through them. Due to my status with AC as a priority investor I get fees waived or reduced in most cases. I will check out your question later on.

JohnChisum

Fidelity and Schwab are not listed as NTF. I did see Doubleline in the list though.

davidrmoran

Fidelity is always responsive in all respects, and otherwise excellent except for mfund selection (sometimes). ML is trying but only partly succeeding. ML does have free trading, for anything and everything, if you have enough there, which is wonderful. Their mfund selection leaves a lot to be desired, but they are trying there too. Email c/s is not good at all, rote. Display of balances, settlements, margin, mislabeling or weird labeling of events, timing of the display, all strange and atypical and often misleading.

chrisw

I hold several accounts and transfer holdings between them. Usually the different brokerages are good for different things, and as circumstances change, I've tended to focus my activity with one or another.

Scottrade:
- Poor website, functionality. Must call to cancel mutual fund trades.
- Customer service is the local office. Limited hours, but good service.
- Excellent selection of institutional funds with low initial investment (often $100).
- Summary: A must have for institutional share class access (I hate 12b-1 fees).

Merrill Edge:
- 30 Free Equity/ETF trades per month with $50K (Platinum Privileges status).
- Web site/functionality has progressed dramatically, but quirky.
- Fund distributions don't work well with Quicken. Often must be manually fixed.
- Customer service has been good, but fund selection is rather limited.
- Summary: Keeping this one for BoA Platinum Privileges status, but rarely use.

ETrade:
- Good website + tools, but Active Trading tools are limited to frequent traders.
- Won't even hold most institutional class funds.
- $25 fee for outgoing partial transfers.
- Summary: Currently pretty useless for me. Won't hold most of my funds.

Ameritrade:
- Used to use this for Active Trading, but I preferred their older tools to the newer ones.
- Better selection of funds than ETrade (for my own purposes), but still limited.
- Funds trades are expensive. (unless you have a grandfathered TOS account).
- Usually great customer service, but there have been a couple of times I wasn't happy.
- Summary: Was happy here in the past, but it doesn't fit my current needs so well.

Schwab:
- Fees are expensive.
- Won't let me purchase funds listed as institutional.
- Summary: Haven't used this one much. Fully featured, but doesn't fit my needs.

WellsTrade:
- Limited website functionality. Must often call to take care of things.
- Grandfathered PMA account give 100 free trades per year (including fund trades).
- They'll hold almost any fund, and will let me purchase most.
- No break on initial minimums for institutional class funds, but can transfer in.
- Summary: I use this for funds I can't hold at Fidelity. I wouldn't use it without the free trades though.

Fidelity:
- Excellent trading tools + functionality. Slightly confusing website.
- Best fund trading fees if you take advantage of "automatic investments".
- Best customer service in my own experience.
- Great fund selection, but no low initial minimum for institutional, so I transfer in.
- Some funds are classified as "Advisor Funds", and they won't let me transfer them in.
- Summary: My current favorite, but the "Advisor Fund" thing is a huge frustration.

rjb112

@chrisw, great report, thanks.
Had no idea regarding Scottrade: Excellent selection of institutional funds with low initial investment (often $100).
- Summary: A must have for institutional share class access (I hate 12b-1 fees).

What do you mean about Fidelity having the "Best fund trading fees if you take advantage of automatic investments"? I haven't found Fidelity's fees on purchasing/selling a mutual fund to be that great.

chrisw

For Fidelity, once you hold a position in a fund, even if you transferred it in, you can schedule "Automatic Investments" in the account settings. "Automatic Investments are $5 per trade. You need to schedule it at least day ahead and schedule at least 2 trades (but you can cancel without doing 2 trades).

- I schedule it for Quarterly with the first trade scheduled for tomorrow.
- After the trade is submitted, I cancel the automatic investments schedule.

Now you have $5 for purchases, and no fee to sell. With Fidelity, you're not charged a fee for selling a fund, only purchases. It's much cheaper this way than managing funds anywhere else.

davidrmoran

>> It's much cheaper this way than managing funds anywhere else.

except of course for ntf funds, with no charges either direction, and many of them non-Fido

rjb112

chrisw said:

For Fidelity, once you hold a position in a fund, even if you transferred it in, you can schedule "Automatic Investments" in the account settings. "Automatic Investments are $5 per trade. You need to schedule it at least day ahead and schedule at least 2 trades (but you can cancel without doing 2 trades).

- I schedule it for Quarterly with the first trade scheduled for tomorrow.
- After the trade is submitted, I cancel the automatic investments schedule.

Now you have $5 for purchases, and no fee to sell. With Fidelity, you're not charged a fee for selling a fund, only purchases. It's much cheaper this way than managing funds anywhere else.

That's very good to know, thanks.

rjb112

@chrisw or others: How can Merrill Edge afford to give away 30 equity or etf trades a month? 360/year? How do they make any money?

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LLJB

@Maurice, that's really nice! I normally use M* to keep track of the performance of my portfolio but its great if your broker does that for you.

The only advantage I see with M* is that I can divide up my investments into portfolios of my choosing to keep track of how, my mutual fund selections or stock selections, perform and then combine the various portfolios into one for the overall picture. I guess the X-ray function is helpful as well, although being a bit anal I do it manually in a spreadsheet to capture details that M* doesn't and to compare to my own selection of benchmarks.

willmatt72

Recently, I had a bad experience with Fidelity regarding a short-term trading fee. I will admit upfront that it was partially my own fault, but I believe Fidelity bares some responsibility in trying to satisfy an angry long-time customer with a high value account. I purchased FPNIX about 2 months ago as a holding place as cash substitute. When I purchased the fund, I signed off on the electronic prospectus, which includes the fees of course. I sold the fund online last week and incurred a 2 percent short-term trading fee. In the past, Fidelity always warned me online if any fees would be incurred PRIOR to the actual processing of the trade. I would never go ahead with a trade if there was a short term fee involved. For this particular trade, there was no warning or indication that a short-term fee was coming. I went ahead with the sale and got hit with the fee after-the-fact. I called Fidelity and spoke to a manager. He said he did not have access to any online screenshots and could not reimburse any fees. I told him that I was prepared to move more than a half million dollars out of Fidelity if there wasn't some sort of overture made on their part. He had no explanation as to why the fees were listed in the past but not now. He said I read the prospectus and there is nothing that can be done. Suffice to say, I moved a lot of money to Schwab. I have my 401K and Rewards Card with Fidelity now. Nothing else. In my opinion, it is good customer service and business policy to give shareholders a breakdown of the fees PRIOR to processing a sale. I work for a Transfer Agent and that is our policy. That way, no one is surprised on the back end. However, I do realize I made a mistake as well.

Old_Joe

Well, as I mentioned above, up to this point I'm happy with Schwab, but I have to say that I'd be surprised if they would have acted any differently on this particular matter. On these sorts of things the results frequently seem to depend on the luck of the draw when you talk to a "manager". It never hurts to try to escalate a problem above the "manager", if that's possible.

willmatt72

Old_Joe said:

Well, as I mentioned above, up to this point I'm happy with Schwab, but I have to say that I'd be surprised if they would have acted any differently on this particular matter. On these sorts of things the results frequently seem to depend on the luck of the draw when you talk to a "manager". It never hurts to try to escalate a problem above the "manager", if that's possible.

Just curious - does Schwab give a breakdown or "warning" box to let the shareholder know that a short-term fee is part of a transaction prior to processing?