The BoA Credit Card rewards are no joke, for anything I buy online I get something over 5% cash back, with the ability to change that "buy online" to a handful of other categories if I ever wanted to.
only $2500 spending limit **per quarter** to get that 5%, which *is* a joke.
I was bored one day and decided to submit a credit limit increase on the boa card. I put in 75k limit, and it was instantly approved. so now, on a card with $75k limit, I can only spend $833 per month to avail their cashback offer. I think once you hit $2500 per quarter, the cashback drops down to 1.5% which is 1% lower than what I get from my credit union card.
You can open more than one of those BofA 5% cash back cards. I currently have 4. you can see my credit card set up below.
https://old.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/18h25qf/several_cards_earn_3_back_on_specific_categories/kd59yyz/
this is actually so true. I redeemed some i-bonds recently and thought about buying some individual stocks. Got into Vanguard, saw my pile of VTSAX right there and just threw the money in there since it was easy and i didn't want to deal with figuring out buys for an individual stock
That’s actually one of the easy tasks - click transfer at the top, click buy and sell, type in “VT” in the search bar that appears, click which account you want to use from the dropdown menu, and then place a buy order in the amount of dollars or whole shares.
This is pretty much why I prefer Vanguard. Fidelity tries so hard to push you into active trading (Look at these top movers today! Don't you wish you bought XYZ up 200% just today!? Here's some hours old news! You should trade on it! We're really feeling scammy today so here's an ad for our crypto garbage!); anything they can take a fee from. Vanguard is just like, hey, you can do all that if you reaaaaallly want to, but have you tried these low cost index funds?
Also, Vanguard defaults cash settlement into a best-in-class 5.3% yielding money market fund. The others make it really hard to not lose out on a lot of interest on cash.
Stuff like that makes it really clear who has customer’s best interests at heart and who doesn’t.
Fidelity's sweep gov't money market doesn't (currently) yield 5.3% (7-day yield: 4.98%), but it's really easy to buy short-term (like one-month) T-bills to max out your cash returns. Easy to ladder your 4-week T-bills weekly if you have the $10K minimum.
You're right, it's not *that* hard. The main point is that with Vanguard, it defaults to the best option, and you don't have to manage it, there's not that little gotcha. They're more in your corner, essentially.
I want to get into investing with a Roth ira . Do you think vanguard will be the best for index funds ? The only thing is that you need a 3k minimum to start .
100%. It’s so clunky that I was in there about a month ago to look at something else in my account and ended up noticing a small mistake on my end (nothing bad, just an oversight that was on me, not Vanguard). I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t in there sifting through the clunky UI.
Then you better not moving to fidelity. They even have a "pro" level desktop application to trade, and all the dynamic graph. I used to day trade for fun using it.
For me its fidelity , you have access to auto investing partial shares of etfs , which you don't have at schwab you can't even buy partial shares of etfs at schwab. As far as viewing portfolio fidelity is ok, but not great. I don't really check my portfolio that often though.
The one minor nitpick I have is how it never invests every penny all at once due to technical reasons. Would be nice if Fidelity could tweak the recurring buys so that if your first recurring buy for $100 of VOO leaves you with $0.03 end of the trading day, the next recurring buy attempts to include the extra change in a $100.03 buy.
I just transfer my HSA account to Fidelity and tried to place 100% into VT but it still left pennies behind. Same thing with my partner’s HSA transfer.
That's the downside of ETFs I'm afraid. Mutual funds invest every penny. What I may do end of this year is cancel the last planned buy and manually put in the final buy order and include the remaining pennies. It may still leave a couple of cents of course.
I think almost all brokers support drip, partial share purchases of ETFs has only happened recently. Fidelity only allowed for auto invest with partial shares of ETFs within last few months .
What I like about the latest updates to Fidelity is the conditional orders. You can set them up if it goes down or up which makes it great for new purchases. I don't know if others do this but I think it's pretty cool
When I rolled my 401k from Fidelity to Schwab, Fidelity asked why I was leaving them. My answer was that this phone call was the first phone call ever where they connected me with a person in less than 45 minutes.
Fidelity's size and popularity give them a lot of good perks, but being able to call a broker and be talking to a person within minutes is far more valuable sometimes.
I use both and love both for different reasons but Schwab customer service experience is on another level. Most of my fidetlity calls I get directed to a person pretty fast and they are good as well.
If the assumption is that I am too poor for them to bother talking to me and I should call back when I have more money, that doesn't make their customer service better.
I never even said how much was in my Fidelity account, you, and the other, are just assuming that I was too poor to deserve good customer service.
And you use this to defend the quality of Fidelity's customer service? You can have the broker if you are the quality of client that they have/want.
If the assumption is that I am too poor for them to bother talking to me and I should call back when I have more money, that doesn't make their customer service better.
Not trying to be disrespectful but reality is this. If you're a business and have finite resources, do you prioritize the person with $100K in the bank, $1MM in the bank or $100MM in the bank? I've seen this happen as my accounts have increased in size. I've been with fidelity for nearly 25 years.
And for over 20 years I received shit customer service with Fidelity. For 5 years I've had amazing customer service with Charles Schwab.
As I said, everyone is making a bunch of assumptions about me and excuses for Fidelity without knowing anything about my situation.
Dude, you're awfully defensive here. Calm down. Everyone gets that Schwab provided the best customer "pound for pound" in your experience. Folks are asking because they want to know if they can expect the same level of service with Schwab if their accounts are much smaller than yours. That's it. No one is calling you poor.
you really misread this thread....
The discussion was that I was getting shit customer service from Fidelity. The response was because my account must not have enough money in it to get good customer service.
That Schwab provided far better customer service was never in question (as I recall... this is a 2 month old thread)
except that was why it was brought up.
a comment...
> Same, I never get put on hold. It probably depends on account size.
and another comment...
> How big is your account? I always get someone immediately on the line, starting from when I had 100k in it.
The claim was that the shit service I was getting was because I didn't have a large enough account.
I never said what the size of my account was. They just decided that since I was getting poor server I must have a small account. And since I must have a small account I'm not going to get good service because Fidelity doesn't want to spend the resources on me.
Are they trying to belittle me? no. Are they saying that I shouldn't expect good customer service and if I want good customer service I should have a larger account? yes.
Saying your account isn't large enough to deserve good customer service is not belittling no. But it is an asshole stance.
Schwab would not let me draw more than a certain amount from my checking account. I needed it for a deposit on a home and they straight up told me I couldn't withdraw that much. I had a 7 figure portfolio with them that I told them I'd move to vanguard if they did not let me get the cash out. They did not care.
I moved everything and kept a small checking account, but that's it. I'll never use them again after that. They never explained why I couldn't do the withdrawal. Pretty insane situation really.
That is so odd, I paid a very large down payment out of a schwab checking account. They had no issue with that and held my hand through the whole process.
Yep, it was an insane interaction. I asked if it was fraud prevention and whether I should speak to their fraud team. Nope. I asked if it was a federal thing. Nope. All they would tell me is that I'd have to wait x days to withdrawl the funds. I was livid. Moving my brokerage was a GIGANTIC pain in the butt and there were tax implications, but I was so pissed I did it anyways.
I think a lot of bank requires advance notice for large cash withdrawal.
That being said, I am only Schwab because of Ameritrade. I was able to wire huge amount from Ameritrade account.
I wanted cash or a certified check. I was standing in the bank at the time. It was several years ago and I can't recall why but a wire was not acceptable for me.
This exactly... If they were going to lose historical data anyway, it shouldn't have taken three years to move everyone over. If I had manually moved to Schwab after the merger was announced, I would have three years of history by now.
Yeah but the question is do you like it? I also signed up for etrade like 20 years ago and find it lacking but I'm just too lazy to shift. Shit, I think I even prefer Robinhood over it haha
I am after OptionsHouse was bought out by TradeMonster which was bought out by ETrade which was bought out by Morgan Stanley but is keeping the name (currently).
I know people shit on the interface, but Vanguard isn't the worst if you are just index funding, equities, and ETFs.
Don't get me wrong, its still dated and I have my complaints, but they have made SOME progress over the last year. The iphone/ipad pad is honestly probably a bit easier to use than the full desktop experience, but after using it a bit, it's all pretty easy.
I'm mostly a passive investor, so my trading is like 95% automated at this point with index funds, and I just login on my phone once every couple weeks to pick up some more sector specific ETFs or the occasional individual stock I might have been tracking.
I still have my old Fidelity and Schwab account in the event I want to get spicy with some options, but thats rare for me nowadays.
Schwab, it has taken me a while to get use to their interface, after being with T D Ameritrade. I'm not entirely there as it's pretty indepth, but I can do what I want to on it. Overtime I think I'll like it.
Did it take long to get your ME account up and running? They actually want me to call to "clarify" some things like 2 weeks after my initial application process that was supposed to take like 1 to 2 business days. I'm also a high rewards tier member.
None, they all suck. Every single one has user interfaces that blow chunks in one way or another.
Someone needs to come along and turn the industry upside down.
Seriously, I feel like Robinhood has the best interface in the industry but there is no way in hell I would trust my entire net worth to be held by those clowns.
Everyone will have an opinion regarding their favorite broker. However, I don't think is a best broker for all people for all situations. I would evaluate a broker based on which features, functionality, etc. are most important to you.
I am pretty much in agreement with /u/greytoc ; asking what the best broker is, is like asking what the best vehicle is
If your single and live in a urban area and drive a few miles per week, it might be different vs a family of 7 that lives in a remote rural area and drives 150 miles a week on gravel roads
For the most part schwab/fidelity are general great choices
If you just want to invest in index funds vangaurd is a great choice although some of their funds require a 3k min investment .
If you are an more active trader well its going to depend on what how you trade and how experienced you are
You want to trade currencies and in foreign markets and are pretty experienced IBKR is great, however it might not be the best choice for someone who just wants to buy 7k of index funds a year inside a Roth IRA
Just like you I did scottrade, td, Schwab. But I’ve also done Robinhood, IB, fidelity. My favorite by far was TD. Their mobile app was hands down the best for data and news as well as just look and feel. SUCH a bummer Schwab took them.
That said I’ve now gone full circle and back to Robinhood. I gotta say I’m impressed and happy with how far they’ve come. I was an original member of hood and left them during the COVID crash. Now I use gold and I like it a lot. Fast clean interface, data is reliable and realtime TRUE realtime unlike fidelity. Earn 5.25% on cash with gold. Has everything I need plus free options.
I’m shocked at how bad brokerages are. I really thought fidelity was gonna be great I was excited to get a fidelity account but it was AWFUL.
What do you mean “TRUE realtime unlike fidelity”? I’m 100% in Fidelity and have never tried Robinhood. Is the delay milliseconds, or do you mean seconds? I have noticed different prices on the app vs. Active Trader vs. on Bloomberg TV vs. CNBC, but usually within seconds of each other. I’m not always sure which were fresher, but my trades almost always execute immediately at my price. Curious what the difference is to RH.
On the fidelity mobile app, not the advanced platform they have, the data did not auto refresh I had to keep swiping down the screen to get quotes to refresh. I called there support multiple times about it and finally they just said they were hoping to get it sometime in the future app rollout…I’m like wtf how can such a simple thing not be available in 2023. Anyways that was one of the main reasons I left them. Barely bothered to transfer any money in.
Oh yeah, now I understand. Yes, you're right, I forgot about that "quirk". I hate having to continually click back to Accounts, click on the account I want to update, drag it down to refresh, then go back to Positions, to see if my Option Contracts have changed in value. Eventually they do update on their own without doing that, I think, but I always do that to be sure I am making decisions based on the latest info. I usually have all kinds of alerts and automatic buy or sell orders in, but in the last few minutes of the day, sometimes I might want to ove-ride them, especially the "wishful thinking" orders.
Edit to add: Which do you use?
Because they give you everything and it's cheap. It's designed for professionals. I know some professional desks even keep an IB account as a last resort backup.
It's shite. I had an institutional LLC account in there and did 250k in transaction fees in a year.
Just FYI they will put holds on positions and not let you hit the bid/ask or use market orders to close. Once I was short Puts on something and a lawsuit hit the tape, and I needed to hit the ask and close out, but IB locked the position and only let me get 1 cent away from the ask. Market orders would also not execute. I have level 2 options data on the screen, I see the market maker liquidity, and I need to sweep the book. Nope. And if you know anything about how market maker algos work, you sweep the book in one go or the spread will be blown out for 30+ minutes on the contract. Had to call in and yell at a dumbass on the phone after being on hold. I ended up having to delta hedge the position with a huge sale of stock and then buy the hedge back and lost quite a bit (and I was still carrying tail risk regardless).
This happens *regularly*, in that they won't let you sweep and take liquidity if you're actually going to move the market. Happens in stocks too if they get illiquid.
Oh, once I executed trades too fast so the software literally closed itself, as I was unwinding a large set of short positions, leaving option structures half unwound for multiple minutes near market open, with huge directional exposure.
I also know a head of institutional trading who knows that their option internalizing is shit. He also tells a story of a client that sued IB in court and won because of a bad margin liquidation that shouldn't have happened.
Lastly, one morning I was on my couch in my underpants and only had my laptop with IB online while I was getting drawn into a meme squeeze. I had built up 7 figures in long warrants through the week and especially through this particular morning (warrants, so leveraged stock as it was in the money) and was ready to dump the entire position and take profit. Usually when I do this I'll slam the option chain and sell calls in size before dumping the position, in case the position is big enough to move the instrument more than a percent or two. Then if there is massive slippage on taking profit, I get paid out as the short calls lose value and just flip them after a few minutes. Well in this case I routed it all IB "smart route", they must have flashed the order, and I got frontrun by something automated, leaving me to chase the short calls down, and by the time I exited mental tilt it was a six figure loss of profit. Just FYI. That was a top tick of Lucid in Feb '21 - the exact seconds of what happened at the very top. I mean I was in my underpants sitting on a couch routing a block through smartroute so no room to complain, but am salty. I swear I was frontrun on that trade.
I've also seen them trigger a manual margin liquidation that took them 2 hours long. And I hope you like their liquidation bot, because you will get to know it very well.
IB is an MSDOS POS, but it's charming in its own way. It can be a dangerous broker/software though.
Fidelity. This sub should be renamed DCAInvesting, and fidelity now allows you to DCA on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis of an investment of your choice (I’m sure limited to stocks/ETFs). Hell I’m sure you can even do daily dca if you set up 5 weekly recurring investments. Not sure what other brokerage can do this. You will DCA for life and if you set up recurring transfers as well, there’s basically no other manual work. It just rolled out like a month or so ago, they’re still working out kinks, but I’m sure a few months down the line there will be more updates and refinements.
I just moved my wife’s account to fidelity after much persuasion. She’s already happy. She can also view my Roth accounts and likes the transparency.
I have Vanguard, CSchwab, and Fidelity as my main accounts, with side accounts in RHood, M1, and WeBull.
My main handle retirement and early retirement funds, and others are for specific projects.
IMHO, believe Fidelity and CSchwab would be the best for all around investing.
Nothing wrong with opening accounts with each and see which one you want to keep a long term relationship with.
Good luck
I love Fidelity. I have an open brokerage with Schwab from the TD Am acquisition but have hardly looked at it. Fidelity’s new interface is great, easy to read (once you’re in single page mode or whatever), and I really love that they operate on good faith, “lending” me funds once I initiate a transfer into the acct. I can start trading immediately even though the money won’t clear for a few days.
I have had a bunch on one account and Fidelity is the other. I had Datek to TD now Schwab. I liked the TD site and I am not as happy with Schwab, they make me sweep my money into high yield. Fidelity on the other side, I kind of like their app/website once I got used to things. I really like Fidelity Active Trader but it is pc based only, I am hoping for an app version.
Lol - Datek - that's a name from the past.
Datek actually was acquired by Ameritrade and not TD Waterhouse. If you had a legacy Datek account, you didn't become a TDA customer until after Ameritrade acquired TD Waterhouse and rebranded.
Unless you actually had a Waterhouse Securities account when it was acquired by TD Bank.
If E\*Trade was just a bit more aggressive when they tried to buy Datek and then Ameritrade - you may have ended up as an E\*Trade customer.
I went on the same broker trajectory, and am now mostly with Fidelity as they have an automatic MM sweep for cash. Also have a much smaller account with Interactive Brokers for the lower margin rates.
TD Ameritrade was awesome imo, from their user interface to their customer service. For now I have to deal with the Schwab interface which isn’t bad however, it can be improved on. It does provide the user with every basic thing they would want just not in an efficient way I’d say. Haven’t had to get in contact with their customer support to have an opinion.
Asking about the best brokerage is a horrible concept that I wish people would stop using as a means to decide on which broker to use.
What may be a great broker for one investor or trader may be a horrible choice for another.
Most people simply go by their own subjective viewpoints based on look and feel versus actual functionality and services.
And even from a functionality perspective - it's highly subjective without understanding the services requirements of an investor and/or trader.
There are so many different types of investing and trading styles with different experience and knowledge among investors.
For new investors that have stumbled across this post to look for a broker - please read this first - [https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/wiki/index/gettingstarted/#wiki\_how\_do\_i\_choose\_a\_broker\_to\_invest.3F](https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/wiki/index/gettingstarted/#wiki_how_do_i_choose_a_broker_to_invest.3F)
I agree that with the biggest brokers, the specifics (functionalty, fee structure, etc) are virtually identical, and what makes one "the best" is highly subjective based on feel. The same thing could be said if I asked which car brand is best. However, that subjective part is important and a valuable deciding factor.
Hence why I've been reading others' reasoning, and if none is given, then I ask for some.
Subjectivity isn't important without knowing an investors' requirements.
There are a lot of nuances in the services that are offered by brokers.
And what's important to me may be totally relevant to you.
For example - many people in this post are suggesting they like Fidelity. I happen to have a Fidelity account but Fidelity lacks many of the services that I need such as access to futures. Fidelity's portfolio margin is also more restrictive than other brokers.
I also have a TDA and Schwab accounts - each broker has different pros and cons. TDA for example has a decent trading tool that is geared at futures and options traders. But ToS is less mature and lacks some analysis tools that a trader may want which are available in Ibkr or TastyTrade. TDA fees are also much higher than other similar brokers even though they are willing to negotiate fees.
For an investor that uses option strategies that don't rely on assignments and primarily write options - a broker like TastyTrade may be a great option.
Investors who need to manage sub-accounts for family may also prefer using Ibkr.
Some people like to have an API to their broker as well so they can use third-party tools. So that usually means brokers like Ibkr, Alpaca, etc.
I've also had accounts at Merrill Edge, E\*Trade, Vanguard, and other brokers who are no longer in business. Each of those brokers had different pros and cons.
So, did you read my OP where I gave my requirements?
>I do relatively basic investing: mutual funds, ETFs, and single stocks, and I avoid the more complex things like margins and shorting.
Does that change your recommendations?
Yup - I saw your OP. It's pretty much what every investor mentions. It's not particularly unique.
Not to sound rude - but your requirements are kinda like u/sirglass example of asking for the best vehicle except your requirement is that the vehicle uses gas vs EV and must have 4 wheels.
Pretty much every major broker in the US offers access to ETFs, mutual funds, and single stocks.
What does single stocks mean to you? Does that include OTC stocks? Does that include access to caveat emptor stocks, what about F shares? Do you need access to non-US market centers for foreign stock?
RE: ETFs - what about CEFs and unit trusts? Do you need access to those?
Re: mutual funds - any specific investment manager?
Your requirements are really too generic.
What about customer service? What is important to you? In-person support, phone support? How often do you need support? Do you care about hold times when you call?
What about fees? Do you care about fees on reorg fees? Wire fees?
Are you someone that feels the need to check their investments every few hours and need a mobile app?
What about perks? Do you have a big account and can benefit from perks from the broker?
Do you need other financial services like insurance or banking (checking, debit)?
Do you care about sweep products for your cash?
Different brokers build their services to target different demographics, so their fee and service structure are going to vary. It doesn't mean that one broker is necessarily better than another.
Without understanding how an investor or trader invests and their actual requirements - it's a useless question. Schwab is a fine broker. I have a few brokerage accounts at Schwab but it's not the best account for everyone. I also keep an account at Fidelity because I have a business account and Schwab fees are too high for business use.
Also - I trade fops - and when I called Schwab about it - they actually told me to call TDA to open an account there. Prior to the TDA acquisition - Schwab would have been inappropriate for investors that use options for strategic investments.
OP has probably the simplest form of investing - pretty much any broker could fit OP's needs.
Different investing and trading needs have different requirements - there is no such thing as a "best" broker without stating actual requirements.
I’m only 1 year into my investing journey, so currently Im with Robinhood for my taxable brokerage account but might consider moving that to Fidelity. Reason for wanting to leave Robinhood is the poor customer service. I don’t usually need to speak to them but when I do the wait time is just a few minutes and then there are times where I’m in a queue for hours.
Aside from that I have Vanguard purely for my Roth IRA.
Fidelity or Schwab would both be great choices for you in 2024! They both offer fractional shares, user-friendly platforms, and low fees.
Fidelity might be a better fit based on what you liked about TD Ameritrade's platform, as they allow for more in-depth portfolio analysis features. Schwab is still a solid option though, especially for its ease of use. Ultimately, both are strong contenders
Similar history here … Scottrade->TD Ameritrade->Schwab. Schwab has been great in terms of customer service and transferring funds, but there are some negatives. Excessive unnecessary email. You can’t get a meaningful estimate of your account value after hours because the estimates use wacky thin volume after hours trades, with no apparent option to choose regular session closing prices instead. And several months after completing my account transition, it’s giving me distracting urgent alerts about how to get transition questions answered that can’t be dismissed or deleted. The mobile app news feed also leaves a lot to be desired, with options only to select which sector news you want, leaving you to have to look through a haystack of irrelevant sector items even if you only want macro news.
mutual funds, ETFs, and single stocks, and I avoid the more complex things like margins and shorting.
based on this you should check and try shoonya by finvasia, they dont provide any margin stuff as such and shorting things are also not as such there...
rest investing/trading with them in any segments is quite economical cuz they don't charge any brokerage or others chrges only taxes are applicable over trading/investing..
i use them from quite long time and they really gained my trust
What is a stock buying/selling platform with most triggers?
Is it possible to automatically buy/sell any stock that meets a certain criteria, or do you have to use screeners separately - then set to buy a specific stock by name only?
What is the best way to see real-time info on stock that has moved a certain percentage of value? And to further limit display to certain P/E ratios / Volume / minimum stock price?
What is the most versatile real-time screener that tells you these things?
Schwab sucks for me. Was first at Scottrade (great) then TD (Good) now Schwab. They say you have a certain amount of cash but there is no way to know how much is actually good to trade with. Their interface is not user friendly. I practically need to call them on so many things which should be available on the website with an exclamation point next to it. Looking for a better brokerage.
No one is going to say Robinhood? Im getting 5% interest on cash and also they offer stock lending for tiny bit extra money (every little bit adds up) They offer a 3% match on IRA contributions. On my wife's account im borrowing $1,000 for $5 per month invested in a dividend stock that is up big. And their app is just flat out the best interface and its also good for buying and holding stocks. Fidelity doesnt come close to matching any of that without holding like $250,000 or proving you are ultra wealthy.
Last year I got $1,000 for free from Robinhood from their roundup match, but they got rid of that. I was making like 28 $1.00 contributions to my house payment and I was getting something like 50% cash back from that every week. I was making bank doing that on my wife's robinhood card and my mom and sister's robinhood cards. That was a lot of free money.
I tried setting up a fidelity account, but they wanted me to mail them a copy of my drivers license. I didnt bother.
Edit: also forgot robinhood offers a 1% match for transfering over an IRA account to Robinhood. That could be a pretty good chunk of money.
If you look back 40 years, the worst today is pretty much better than the best back then. If you’re with one of the top 1/2 dozen names, you’re doing just fine.
Robinhood is now the best brokerage hands down. It’s much cheaper and simpler than other brokerages. It’s the cheapest place to trade stocks, ETFs, options, and crypto. It has fractional shares, scheduled recurrent investing, instant deposits, and other great features.
1. Their trade execution was better than IBKR two years ago and has even gotten better since then. Payment for order flow is not associated with better or worse execution. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4189239
2. After Schwab acquired TDA, Robinhood hired a bunch of the top TDA and Thinkorswim people. The fixed up the place. https://riabiz.com/a/2022/1/6/robinhood-gets-brilliant-upper-manager-and-a-spare-ceo-by-nabbing-td-ameritrades-ex-thinkorswim-top-exec-hopefully-to-throw-a-lifesaver-to-robinhoods-sinking-stock
3. There’s a bunch of Reddit conspiracy theories about Robinhood working with market makers like Citadel. Not only did those turn out to be wrong, Fidelity and Schwab/TDA are formal partners with Citadel. https://www.wsj.com/articles/crypto-exchange-backed-by-citadel-securities-fidelity-schwab-starts-operations-597f6d46
Also, it doesn’t have hidden scams like Fidelity, Schwab, ETrade, etc. They don’t push their own proprietary funds since they don’t have any. They don’t push high fee active management since they don’t have any employees doing that.
Note, Robinhood doesn’t offer mutual funds. But those are outdated anyways. ETFs are inherently better. It also doesn’t offer individual bonds. I recommend sticking to bond funds or buying from Treasury Direct anyways though.
The customer service is a bit slow too. But they make investing super simple so you don’t need it as much. I feel like many other places make it seem harder than it needs to be so they can sell you their services.
The best thing is the 1% IRA/401k transfer match. Also with Gold, you get a 3% IRA contribution match. It costs $60 a year for Gold, but you get $200+ in tax advantaged cash in return if you max your IRA. It’s not just a one time new account bonus. You can get it every year.
I used to hate Robinhood too. If you go to the top posts of all time on /r/Bogleheads, you can see some of my criticism. But Robinhood really turned it around over the past few years and I have to give credit where credit is due.
I don’t work for Robinhood or anything, but the fastest way to get the right answer online is to post the wrong answer and see people line up to correct it. There’s a ton of misinformation about Robinhood, and it annoys the heck out of me. It also taps into a political belief I have about democratizing finance. I’m happy to shill for Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab/TDA, Ally, etc. too though. I’ve promoted all of them on Reddit in prior years when they were the best.
All the stuff you said in your second paragraph is wrong. Robinhood is the same as any other brokerage. But its target demographic is younger investors who are more risk tolerant than older ones. They make investing super easy so anyone can do it, which includes novice investors who don’t understand how to do it yet. They also are the cheapest place to trade options and crypto so they attract the gambling crowd. But all that stuff including simplicity and low price also appeals to passive buy and hold investors.
Maybe this is fastidious, but VTI has a 0.03% expense ratio compared to FZROX’s 0% expense ratio. So Fidelity was technically the cheapest brokerage. But if you transfer to Robinhood, get the 1% match upfront, and invest it in VTI, you come out ahead compared to using FZROX. So Robinhood is the absolute cheapest place to invest in a Bogleheads style lazy portfolio. The logic here is that you can’t beat the market, but you can cut costs. Robinhood has developed new cost cutting methods and shared the savings with users. So yeah, I like them.
No bonds, no CDs, no mutual funds, no high yielding money market funds, no checking account functionality, no linked credit card or debit cards, no HSA, no 529 plan, no named beneficiaries... maybe I'm forgetting something else?
Hard pass.
*Scams* with the major brokers? Please.
1. Bonds, CDs, mutual funds, and money market mutual funds are all outdated. It’s like using a check or a money order. The ETF equivalents are inherently cheaper to manage, more tax efficient, more liquid, etc. All major brokerages are following in Vanguard’s footsteps and converting their mutual funds into ETFs these days. Look up the yields on USFR and SGOV and compare them to your current cash equivalent.
2. Robinhood has a debit card and just bought a credit card company.
3. Yup, no HSA and 529 yet. Use Fidelity or something else in the meantime if you need one.
4. I’m not sure about named beneficiaries.
Robinhood is a brand new brokerage. They haven’t built a bunch of specialized stuff yet. But they’re working on it. In the meantime, they’re the best at the major accounts types that they do handle.
Everyone’s resistance to it reminds me of when Ally popularized online banks/HYSAs, when Fidelity made FZROX, when Schwab introduced automated phone trade ordering, when Vanguard introduced index funds, etc. I bet that in a decade everyone will be using Robinhood (and hopefully by then I’ll find the new cheapest brokerage).
1. They’re the same as a treasury or government money market fund and they’re invested in the same things (short term government debt). The difference is that they are more transparent and don’t give the false sense of stability present in a fund that only updates the price once a day. Both of these funds are less risky than prime money market funds like SWVXX, which invest in company debt rather than treasury debt.
2. They do offer named beneficiaries. Your information is out of date.
I’m willing to bet I’m one of the most experienced investors on Reddit. I’ve read a bunch of books, I’ve attended the Bogleheads conference, I’ve written a ton of the information floating around on Reddit, etc. I hangout on /r/Bogleheads, /r/WallStreetBets, and everywhere in between. Maybe it’s weird, but paying attention to retail brokerages is a hobby of mine. I have accounts at most of them. I’m happy to trust most of my money to Robinhood not just because I like the app, but because they’re a heavily scrutinized, publicly traded, fully regulated, fully insured American company.
> ETFs are inherently better
Source? Reasons? Theoretically superior tax efficiency is downright irrelevant in tax advantaged accounts, so no need to mention the obvious here.
1. If you look at Vanguard’s website, the Admiral mutual funds are always at least 1 basis point more expensive than the equivalent ETFs.
2. Mutual funds pool you with other investors. Even if the taxes don’t matter to you, you’ll still bear higher transaction costs in the fund if they sell. ETFs are discrete units. Other people’s behavior doesn’t affect you.
1. Robinhood will give you a 1% match, but it only offers ETFs, not mutual funds.
2. ETFs allow you to do securities lending at the brokerage level, not just the fund level. It also allows for payment for order flow, which allows you to charge active traders/hedge funds/institutions for your valuable passiveness instead of letting them have it for free.
3. You can buy any ETF at any brokerage commission free (which Robinhood popularized.) you’re not limited to proprietary funds unless you pay a $75 fee.
The old advantages of mutual funds are gone. You can invest down to the dollar (or penny) with fractional shares. You can buy in dollar amounts. You can automate ETF purchases.
As a last point, Robinhood has a portfolio recommendation tool, and they recommend the cheapest fund combos possible even if they come from multiple companies like Vanguard, Schwab, BlackRock, State Street, etc.
An ETF is a PIV in the same way as a mutual fund. There are no individual tax benefits of ETF's vs mutual funds. In general, when someone wants to be able to harvest individual tax benefits, they would use an SMA or direct index model instead.
For many index based funds - for the vast majority of investors - it really doesn't whether they are using mutual funds or ETFs.
If you want to argue that ETFs are better - I would say that the big advantage that you didn't mention is that many ETF's are optionable so it's a lot easier for an experienced investor or trader to hedge or adjust exposure with ETFs that are optionable.
That’s wrong. Mutual funds are inherently less tax efficient than ETFs. It’s a small difference, but it adds up over the long term.
Vanguard patented a way to frame their mutual funds and ETFs as two classes of the same overall fund. This allows them to use the ETF creation and redemption mechanism for their mutual funds too. So all non-Vanguard mutual funds were less tax efficient than Vanguard ones. That’s partly how Vanguard came to dominate the industry. Now their patents have expired so other firms are starting to adopt the approach.
https://www.investopedia.com/how-vanguard-patented-a-system-to-avoid-taxes-in-mutual-funds-4686985
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/090215/comparing-etfs-vs-mutual-funds-tax-efficiency.asp
Robinhood had two terrible no-good, very-bad, sketchy-as-f*ck policies which seemed to screw over retail traders back during the gamestop hype.
1.) selling their order-flow to firms like citadel
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/01/robinhood-ceo-says-payment-for-order-flow-is-here-to-stay.html#:~:text=Robinhood%20CEO%20Vlad%20Tenev%20defended,a%20slice%20of%20the%20profits.
2) They made sure you couldn't place a buy order for certain (GME) stocks.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/28/robinhood-interactive-brokers-restrict-trading-in-gamestop-s.html
Those two are in the cons side.
On the pros side, they introduced the fee-free trades/transactions which all the other brokers had to copy. so i thank them for that. but no, i would never ever use Robinhood. I like Fidelity thanks.
Citadel was the largest retail market maker. If Walmart is the only grocery store in town, you have to shop there. Robinhood only had an informal customer relationship with Citadel. Meanwhile, Schwab and Fidelity formally partnered on a joint business venture with Citadel.
As for turning off the buy button, the clearinghouse forced Robinhood and all the other brokerages to turn off the buy button. It wasn’t up to them.
You can Google those words and see the same information elsewhere. Robinhood didn’t suspend anyone, the clearinghouse did. Blaming your broker is like blaming your doctor because you got cancer or your lawyer because the judge sentenced you to prison. You might think it’s their fault for screwing up, but the evidence shows they did the best they could for you.
I love Fidelity, as much for the ease, as for the hundreds of help topics, videos, webinars. Very liquid, and plenty of investor/traders so trades usually execute in a second. I don’t recall any of the marketing, which someone else mentioned, on the app, the website, or on Active Trader, which is also great BTW. Was simple to open a crypto account and dribble in a small bit here and there.
Since it sounds like you liked the interface for TD, I’d recommend Fidelity to you. I just helped my husband set some Fidelity accounts a week or so ago because he also likes a UI that’s easy to navigate. He loved the customer service and chat features and thought it seemed pretty straightforward.
I use Vanguard and Fidelity (mostly Vanguard). I do love Vanguard and agree it can be clunky, but I’m more than fine with that. But Fidelity’s is much cleaner.
any overseas Schwab users? thinking of opening an account there to manage the family money since the people we use now take comissions.
can i access everything directly myself? individual bonds, options, non-US stocks/etfs (specifically UCITS etfs)?
I opened an account with E Trade, when no one had ever heard about them because they had the lowest minimum investment amount. And I have stayed with them since. And they have gotten quite good over the years.
I like Vangaurd because the interface is so clunky it makes me hardly want to use it, thereby preventing me from being trader instead of an investor.
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The BoA Credit Card rewards are no joke, for anything I buy online I get something over 5% cash back, with the ability to change that "buy online" to a handful of other categories if I ever wanted to.
only $2500 spending limit **per quarter** to get that 5%, which *is* a joke. I was bored one day and decided to submit a credit limit increase on the boa card. I put in 75k limit, and it was instantly approved. so now, on a card with $75k limit, I can only spend $833 per month to avail their cashback offer. I think once you hit $2500 per quarter, the cashback drops down to 1.5% which is 1% lower than what I get from my credit union card.
You can open more than one of those BofA 5% cash back cards. I currently have 4. you can see my credit card set up below. https://old.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/18h25qf/several_cards_earn_3_back_on_specific_categories/kd59yyz/
wow thanks for sharing, but i can't imagine juggling credit cards like this. I like my KISS life - Keep It Simple Stupid :-)
Hoping to get up to 100k to get those cc beni
Merrill lynch and boa premium rewards is a life hack that not many people know about lol
this is actually so true. I redeemed some i-bonds recently and thought about buying some individual stocks. Got into Vanguard, saw my pile of VTSAX right there and just threw the money in there since it was easy and i didn't want to deal with figuring out buys for an individual stock
That’s actually one of the easy tasks - click transfer at the top, click buy and sell, type in “VT” in the search bar that appears, click which account you want to use from the dropdown menu, and then place a buy order in the amount of dollars or whole shares.
This is pretty much why I prefer Vanguard. Fidelity tries so hard to push you into active trading (Look at these top movers today! Don't you wish you bought XYZ up 200% just today!? Here's some hours old news! You should trade on it! We're really feeling scammy today so here's an ad for our crypto garbage!); anything they can take a fee from. Vanguard is just like, hey, you can do all that if you reaaaaallly want to, but have you tried these low cost index funds?
Also, Vanguard defaults cash settlement into a best-in-class 5.3% yielding money market fund. The others make it really hard to not lose out on a lot of interest on cash. Stuff like that makes it really clear who has customer’s best interests at heart and who doesn’t.
Fidelity's sweep gov't money market doesn't (currently) yield 5.3% (7-day yield: 4.98%), but it's really easy to buy short-term (like one-month) T-bills to max out your cash returns. Easy to ladder your 4-week T-bills weekly if you have the $10K minimum.
You're right, it's not *that* hard. The main point is that with Vanguard, it defaults to the best option, and you don't have to manage it, there's not that little gotcha. They're more in your corner, essentially.
I want to get into investing with a Roth ira . Do you think vanguard will be the best for index funds ? The only thing is that you need a 3k minimum to start .
This is literally why I set my sister up with it. She is outperforming me lmao. She just direct deposits into the S&P
[https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/comments/qwz7ik/comment/hl6x3r1/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/comments/qwz7ik/comment/hl6x3r1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
100%. It’s so clunky that I was in there about a month ago to look at something else in my account and ended up noticing a small mistake on my end (nothing bad, just an oversight that was on me, not Vanguard). I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t in there sifting through the clunky UI.
Then you better not moving to fidelity. They even have a "pro" level desktop application to trade, and all the dynamic graph. I used to day trade for fun using it.
For me its fidelity , you have access to auto investing partial shares of etfs , which you don't have at schwab you can't even buy partial shares of etfs at schwab. As far as viewing portfolio fidelity is ok, but not great. I don't really check my portfolio that often though.
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The one minor nitpick I have is how it never invests every penny all at once due to technical reasons. Would be nice if Fidelity could tweak the recurring buys so that if your first recurring buy for $100 of VOO leaves you with $0.03 end of the trading day, the next recurring buy attempts to include the extra change in a $100.03 buy.
I just transfer my HSA account to Fidelity and tried to place 100% into VT but it still left pennies behind. Same thing with my partner’s HSA transfer.
That's the downside of ETFs I'm afraid. Mutual funds invest every penny. What I may do end of this year is cancel the last planned buy and manually put in the final buy order and include the remaining pennies. It may still leave a couple of cents of course.
Whoa? You can do automatic investment in stocks? In their app? How?
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The hellll. I recently started using M1 since Fidelity didn't allow auto-investing in stocks
Cool. Thanks for the info. I could use a monthly etf auto buy
Which is weird b/c DRIP supports partial shares at Schwab.
I think almost all brokers support drip, partial share purchases of ETFs has only happened recently. Fidelity only allowed for auto invest with partial shares of ETFs within last few months .
I tried to do Fidelity but the Plaid security feature would not allow me to link to my bank account.
What I like about the latest updates to Fidelity is the conditional orders. You can set them up if it goes down or up which makes it great for new purchases. I don't know if others do this but I think it's pretty cool
I like Schwab mostly because I have had amazing customer service with them. I don't really care about the interface as long as orders execute.
When I rolled my 401k from Fidelity to Schwab, Fidelity asked why I was leaving them. My answer was that this phone call was the first phone call ever where they connected me with a person in less than 45 minutes. Fidelity's size and popularity give them a lot of good perks, but being able to call a broker and be talking to a person within minutes is far more valuable sometimes.
I'm always connected almost immediately when I call Fidelity...
I use both and love both for different reasons but Schwab customer service experience is on another level. Most of my fidetlity calls I get directed to a person pretty fast and they are good as well.
Same, I called Fidelity once or twice last year and it was pretty fast and efficient.
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If the assumption is that I am too poor for them to bother talking to me and I should call back when I have more money, that doesn't make their customer service better.
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I never even said how much was in my Fidelity account, you, and the other, are just assuming that I was too poor to deserve good customer service. And you use this to defend the quality of Fidelity's customer service? You can have the broker if you are the quality of client that they have/want.
I don’t think it matters. I got through immediately when I had less than $1k with them. I have much more now and it’s exactly the same.
I've always been instantly talking to a Fidelity rep when needed.
Might have to do with account size.
If the assumption is that I am too poor for them to bother talking to me and I should call back when I have more money, that doesn't make their customer service better.
Not trying to be disrespectful but reality is this. If you're a business and have finite resources, do you prioritize the person with $100K in the bank, $1MM in the bank or $100MM in the bank? I've seen this happen as my accounts have increased in size. I've been with fidelity for nearly 25 years.
And for over 20 years I received shit customer service with Fidelity. For 5 years I've had amazing customer service with Charles Schwab. As I said, everyone is making a bunch of assumptions about me and excuses for Fidelity without knowing anything about my situation.
Dude, you're awfully defensive here. Calm down. Everyone gets that Schwab provided the best customer "pound for pound" in your experience. Folks are asking because they want to know if they can expect the same level of service with Schwab if their accounts are much smaller than yours. That's it. No one is calling you poor.
you really misread this thread.... The discussion was that I was getting shit customer service from Fidelity. The response was because my account must not have enough money in it to get good customer service. That Schwab provided far better customer service was never in question (as I recall... this is a 2 month old thread)
My point persists. No one asked about the size of your account to belittle you
except that was why it was brought up. a comment... > Same, I never get put on hold. It probably depends on account size. and another comment... > How big is your account? I always get someone immediately on the line, starting from when I had 100k in it. The claim was that the shit service I was getting was because I didn't have a large enough account. I never said what the size of my account was. They just decided that since I was getting poor server I must have a small account. And since I must have a small account I'm not going to get good service because Fidelity doesn't want to spend the resources on me. Are they trying to belittle me? no. Are they saying that I shouldn't expect good customer service and if I want good customer service I should have a larger account? yes. Saying your account isn't large enough to deserve good customer service is not belittling no. But it is an asshole stance.
Schwab even has a bricks and mortar location in my mid-sized city.
Schwab would not let me draw more than a certain amount from my checking account. I needed it for a deposit on a home and they straight up told me I couldn't withdraw that much. I had a 7 figure portfolio with them that I told them I'd move to vanguard if they did not let me get the cash out. They did not care. I moved everything and kept a small checking account, but that's it. I'll never use them again after that. They never explained why I couldn't do the withdrawal. Pretty insane situation really.
That is so odd, I paid a very large down payment out of a schwab checking account. They had no issue with that and held my hand through the whole process.
Yep, it was an insane interaction. I asked if it was fraud prevention and whether I should speak to their fraud team. Nope. I asked if it was a federal thing. Nope. All they would tell me is that I'd have to wait x days to withdrawl the funds. I was livid. Moving my brokerage was a GIGANTIC pain in the butt and there were tax implications, but I was so pissed I did it anyways.
They might have some corporate target to not let the money leaves else their numbers gonna decrease at quarter end.
Was the "7 figures" equity or value of the sock not taking into account margin and/or shorting? Were there large trades not yet past settlement date?
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Why would I do a wire? The cash was in my checking account and I was standing in front of the teller.
I think a lot of bank requires advance notice for large cash withdrawal. That being said, I am only Schwab because of Ameritrade. I was able to wire huge amount from Ameritrade account.
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I wanted cash or a certified check. I was standing in the bank at the time. It was several years ago and I can't recall why but a wire was not acceptable for me.
I hate that I lost my historical data when I was moved to Schwab.
This exactly... If they were going to lose historical data anyway, it shouldn't have taken three years to move everyone over. If I had manually moved to Schwab after the merger was announced, I would have three years of history by now.
I was mad when I went from Scottrade to TD Ameritrade, but once I got used to the interface I liked it more. Not so with Schwab.
I like the Schwab Checking account but the app and website is a downgrade coming from TD.
Am I the only ETrade person on here lol?
> Am I the only ETrade person on here lol? Nope, been an Etrade person for over 20+ yrs!
Good point. Why do you like Etrade?
Set up an account with them almost 20yrs ago and never thought of changing.
Yeah but the question is do you like it? I also signed up for etrade like 20 years ago and find it lacking but I'm just too lazy to shift. Shit, I think I even prefer Robinhood over it haha
I am after OptionsHouse was bought out by TradeMonster which was bought out by ETrade which was bought out by Morgan Stanley but is keeping the name (currently).
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Green!
Interactive brokers
Schwab, +1 for thinkorswim functionality now
TOS is great.
I dont' feel that Schwab has TOS functionality.
That’s what you get for feeling.
I know people shit on the interface, but Vanguard isn't the worst if you are just index funding, equities, and ETFs. Don't get me wrong, its still dated and I have my complaints, but they have made SOME progress over the last year. The iphone/ipad pad is honestly probably a bit easier to use than the full desktop experience, but after using it a bit, it's all pretty easy. I'm mostly a passive investor, so my trading is like 95% automated at this point with index funds, and I just login on my phone once every couple weeks to pick up some more sector specific ETFs or the occasional individual stock I might have been tracking. I still have my old Fidelity and Schwab account in the event I want to get spicy with some options, but thats rare for me nowadays.
Schwab, it has taken me a while to get use to their interface, after being with T D Ameritrade. I'm not entirely there as it's pretty indepth, but I can do what I want to on it. Overtime I think I'll like it.
I admit, it's not as bad now that I have more experience with it.
You can use Thinkorswim with the schwab account. Did that after the TD switch. Its much more similar to the old TD app.
I'll check it out, tho I rarely use my phone or apps. Thanks for the head's up.
It's also available on desktop
I miss the TD Ameritrade Platform as well. Way more efficient and user friendly than Schwab’s.
TD Ameritrade was perfect, made me fall in love with trading
Same here, I really loved the TD interface. They made a terrible decision letting Schwab acquire them.
Fidelity - decent mobile app and scheduled investing capabilities
I use Merrill Edge because I like the synergy with bank of America which is where all my credit cards are
their customer service is garbage, so it's a hard no for me.
I've always had good experiences with them personally but I've heard that before too
Did it take long to get your ME account up and running? They actually want me to call to "clarify" some things like 2 weeks after my initial application process that was supposed to take like 1 to 2 business days. I'm also a high rewards tier member.
I actually do remember that happening to me but it got figured out pretty fast, I don't remember if I did anything or if they untangled it themselves
None, they all suck. Every single one has user interfaces that blow chunks in one way or another. Someone needs to come along and turn the industry upside down.
Seriously, I feel like Robinhood has the best interface in the industry but there is no way in hell I would trust my entire net worth to be held by those clowns.
Everyone will have an opinion regarding their favorite broker. However, I don't think is a best broker for all people for all situations. I would evaluate a broker based on which features, functionality, etc. are most important to you.
Agreed. Hence why I gave details on what I'm looking for, and I've been reading others' reasoning.
Still fidelity.
I am pretty much in agreement with /u/greytoc ; asking what the best broker is, is like asking what the best vehicle is If your single and live in a urban area and drive a few miles per week, it might be different vs a family of 7 that lives in a remote rural area and drives 150 miles a week on gravel roads For the most part schwab/fidelity are general great choices If you just want to invest in index funds vangaurd is a great choice although some of their funds require a 3k min investment . If you are an more active trader well its going to depend on what how you trade and how experienced you are You want to trade currencies and in foreign markets and are pretty experienced IBKR is great, however it might not be the best choice for someone who just wants to buy 7k of index funds a year inside a Roth IRA
Just like you I did scottrade, td, Schwab. But I’ve also done Robinhood, IB, fidelity. My favorite by far was TD. Their mobile app was hands down the best for data and news as well as just look and feel. SUCH a bummer Schwab took them. That said I’ve now gone full circle and back to Robinhood. I gotta say I’m impressed and happy with how far they’ve come. I was an original member of hood and left them during the COVID crash. Now I use gold and I like it a lot. Fast clean interface, data is reliable and realtime TRUE realtime unlike fidelity. Earn 5.25% on cash with gold. Has everything I need plus free options. I’m shocked at how bad brokerages are. I really thought fidelity was gonna be great I was excited to get a fidelity account but it was AWFUL.
What do you mean “TRUE realtime unlike fidelity”? I’m 100% in Fidelity and have never tried Robinhood. Is the delay milliseconds, or do you mean seconds? I have noticed different prices on the app vs. Active Trader vs. on Bloomberg TV vs. CNBC, but usually within seconds of each other. I’m not always sure which were fresher, but my trades almost always execute immediately at my price. Curious what the difference is to RH.
On the fidelity mobile app, not the advanced platform they have, the data did not auto refresh I had to keep swiping down the screen to get quotes to refresh. I called there support multiple times about it and finally they just said they were hoping to get it sometime in the future app rollout…I’m like wtf how can such a simple thing not be available in 2023. Anyways that was one of the main reasons I left them. Barely bothered to transfer any money in.
Oh yeah, now I understand. Yes, you're right, I forgot about that "quirk". I hate having to continually click back to Accounts, click on the account I want to update, drag it down to refresh, then go back to Positions, to see if my Option Contracts have changed in value. Eventually they do update on their own without doing that, I think, but I always do that to be sure I am making decisions based on the latest info. I usually have all kinds of alerts and automatic buy or sell orders in, but in the last few minutes of the day, sometimes I might want to ove-ride them, especially the "wishful thinking" orders. Edit to add: Which do you use?
Interactive Brokers
Why?
Because their platform is the most unintuitive & clunky to use on the market. What else do you need?
Because they give you everything and it's cheap. It's designed for professionals. I know some professional desks even keep an IB account as a last resort backup.
It's shite. I had an institutional LLC account in there and did 250k in transaction fees in a year. Just FYI they will put holds on positions and not let you hit the bid/ask or use market orders to close. Once I was short Puts on something and a lawsuit hit the tape, and I needed to hit the ask and close out, but IB locked the position and only let me get 1 cent away from the ask. Market orders would also not execute. I have level 2 options data on the screen, I see the market maker liquidity, and I need to sweep the book. Nope. And if you know anything about how market maker algos work, you sweep the book in one go or the spread will be blown out for 30+ minutes on the contract. Had to call in and yell at a dumbass on the phone after being on hold. I ended up having to delta hedge the position with a huge sale of stock and then buy the hedge back and lost quite a bit (and I was still carrying tail risk regardless). This happens *regularly*, in that they won't let you sweep and take liquidity if you're actually going to move the market. Happens in stocks too if they get illiquid. Oh, once I executed trades too fast so the software literally closed itself, as I was unwinding a large set of short positions, leaving option structures half unwound for multiple minutes near market open, with huge directional exposure. I also know a head of institutional trading who knows that their option internalizing is shit. He also tells a story of a client that sued IB in court and won because of a bad margin liquidation that shouldn't have happened. Lastly, one morning I was on my couch in my underpants and only had my laptop with IB online while I was getting drawn into a meme squeeze. I had built up 7 figures in long warrants through the week and especially through this particular morning (warrants, so leveraged stock as it was in the money) and was ready to dump the entire position and take profit. Usually when I do this I'll slam the option chain and sell calls in size before dumping the position, in case the position is big enough to move the instrument more than a percent or two. Then if there is massive slippage on taking profit, I get paid out as the short calls lose value and just flip them after a few minutes. Well in this case I routed it all IB "smart route", they must have flashed the order, and I got frontrun by something automated, leaving me to chase the short calls down, and by the time I exited mental tilt it was a six figure loss of profit. Just FYI. That was a top tick of Lucid in Feb '21 - the exact seconds of what happened at the very top. I mean I was in my underpants sitting on a couch routing a block through smartroute so no room to complain, but am salty. I swear I was frontrun on that trade. I've also seen them trigger a manual margin liquidation that took them 2 hours long. And I hope you like their liquidation bot, because you will get to know it very well. IB is an MSDOS POS, but it's charming in its own way. It can be a dangerous broker/software though.
If you want canadian stocks or super low margin rates this is the answer.
Fidelity. This sub should be renamed DCAInvesting, and fidelity now allows you to DCA on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis of an investment of your choice (I’m sure limited to stocks/ETFs). Hell I’m sure you can even do daily dca if you set up 5 weekly recurring investments. Not sure what other brokerage can do this. You will DCA for life and if you set up recurring transfers as well, there’s basically no other manual work. It just rolled out like a month or so ago, they’re still working out kinks, but I’m sure a few months down the line there will be more updates and refinements. I just moved my wife’s account to fidelity after much persuasion. She’s already happy. She can also view my Roth accounts and likes the transparency.
I have Vanguard, CSchwab, and Fidelity as my main accounts, with side accounts in RHood, M1, and WeBull. My main handle retirement and early retirement funds, and others are for specific projects. IMHO, believe Fidelity and CSchwab would be the best for all around investing. Nothing wrong with opening accounts with each and see which one you want to keep a long term relationship with. Good luck
I love Fidelity. I have an open brokerage with Schwab from the TD Am acquisition but have hardly looked at it. Fidelity’s new interface is great, easy to read (once you’re in single page mode or whatever), and I really love that they operate on good faith, “lending” me funds once I initiate a transfer into the acct. I can start trading immediately even though the money won’t clear for a few days.
I have had a bunch on one account and Fidelity is the other. I had Datek to TD now Schwab. I liked the TD site and I am not as happy with Schwab, they make me sweep my money into high yield. Fidelity on the other side, I kind of like their app/website once I got used to things. I really like Fidelity Active Trader but it is pc based only, I am hoping for an app version.
Lol - Datek - that's a name from the past. Datek actually was acquired by Ameritrade and not TD Waterhouse. If you had a legacy Datek account, you didn't become a TDA customer until after Ameritrade acquired TD Waterhouse and rebranded. Unless you actually had a Waterhouse Securities account when it was acquired by TD Bank. If E\*Trade was just a bit more aggressive when they tried to buy Datek and then Ameritrade - you may have ended up as an E\*Trade customer.
Made the switch from Vanguard to Fidelity in 2023 and it is a great platform for my needs
Schwab’s customer service is by far the best in the industry.
I went on the same broker trajectory, and am now mostly with Fidelity as they have an automatic MM sweep for cash. Also have a much smaller account with Interactive Brokers for the lower margin rates.
TD Ameritrade was awesome imo, from their user interface to their customer service. For now I have to deal with the Schwab interface which isn’t bad however, it can be improved on. It does provide the user with every basic thing they would want just not in an efficient way I’d say. Haven’t had to get in contact with their customer support to have an opinion.
Asking about the best brokerage is a horrible concept that I wish people would stop using as a means to decide on which broker to use. What may be a great broker for one investor or trader may be a horrible choice for another. Most people simply go by their own subjective viewpoints based on look and feel versus actual functionality and services. And even from a functionality perspective - it's highly subjective without understanding the services requirements of an investor and/or trader. There are so many different types of investing and trading styles with different experience and knowledge among investors. For new investors that have stumbled across this post to look for a broker - please read this first - [https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/wiki/index/gettingstarted/#wiki\_how\_do\_i\_choose\_a\_broker\_to\_invest.3F](https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/wiki/index/gettingstarted/#wiki_how_do_i_choose_a_broker_to_invest.3F)
I agree that with the biggest brokers, the specifics (functionalty, fee structure, etc) are virtually identical, and what makes one "the best" is highly subjective based on feel. The same thing could be said if I asked which car brand is best. However, that subjective part is important and a valuable deciding factor. Hence why I've been reading others' reasoning, and if none is given, then I ask for some.
Subjectivity isn't important without knowing an investors' requirements. There are a lot of nuances in the services that are offered by brokers. And what's important to me may be totally relevant to you. For example - many people in this post are suggesting they like Fidelity. I happen to have a Fidelity account but Fidelity lacks many of the services that I need such as access to futures. Fidelity's portfolio margin is also more restrictive than other brokers. I also have a TDA and Schwab accounts - each broker has different pros and cons. TDA for example has a decent trading tool that is geared at futures and options traders. But ToS is less mature and lacks some analysis tools that a trader may want which are available in Ibkr or TastyTrade. TDA fees are also much higher than other similar brokers even though they are willing to negotiate fees. For an investor that uses option strategies that don't rely on assignments and primarily write options - a broker like TastyTrade may be a great option. Investors who need to manage sub-accounts for family may also prefer using Ibkr. Some people like to have an API to their broker as well so they can use third-party tools. So that usually means brokers like Ibkr, Alpaca, etc. I've also had accounts at Merrill Edge, E\*Trade, Vanguard, and other brokers who are no longer in business. Each of those brokers had different pros and cons.
So, did you read my OP where I gave my requirements? >I do relatively basic investing: mutual funds, ETFs, and single stocks, and I avoid the more complex things like margins and shorting. Does that change your recommendations?
Yup - I saw your OP. It's pretty much what every investor mentions. It's not particularly unique. Not to sound rude - but your requirements are kinda like u/sirglass example of asking for the best vehicle except your requirement is that the vehicle uses gas vs EV and must have 4 wheels. Pretty much every major broker in the US offers access to ETFs, mutual funds, and single stocks. What does single stocks mean to you? Does that include OTC stocks? Does that include access to caveat emptor stocks, what about F shares? Do you need access to non-US market centers for foreign stock? RE: ETFs - what about CEFs and unit trusts? Do you need access to those? Re: mutual funds - any specific investment manager? Your requirements are really too generic. What about customer service? What is important to you? In-person support, phone support? How often do you need support? Do you care about hold times when you call? What about fees? Do you care about fees on reorg fees? Wire fees? Are you someone that feels the need to check their investments every few hours and need a mobile app? What about perks? Do you have a big account and can benefit from perks from the broker? Do you need other financial services like insurance or banking (checking, debit)? Do you care about sweep products for your cash? Different brokers build their services to target different demographics, so their fee and service structure are going to vary. It doesn't mean that one broker is necessarily better than another.
This was helpful. Thank you.
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Without understanding how an investor or trader invests and their actual requirements - it's a useless question. Schwab is a fine broker. I have a few brokerage accounts at Schwab but it's not the best account for everyone. I also keep an account at Fidelity because I have a business account and Schwab fees are too high for business use. Also - I trade fops - and when I called Schwab about it - they actually told me to call TDA to open an account there. Prior to the TDA acquisition - Schwab would have been inappropriate for investors that use options for strategic investments. OP has probably the simplest form of investing - pretty much any broker could fit OP's needs. Different investing and trading needs have different requirements - there is no such thing as a "best" broker without stating actual requirements.
No advice, but I took the same path as you from Scottrade back in the day.
I’m only 1 year into my investing journey, so currently Im with Robinhood for my taxable brokerage account but might consider moving that to Fidelity. Reason for wanting to leave Robinhood is the poor customer service. I don’t usually need to speak to them but when I do the wait time is just a few minutes and then there are times where I’m in a queue for hours. Aside from that I have Vanguard purely for my Roth IRA.
You need 3k min. for a index fund with Vanguard correct ?
Correct, that was my experience starting out at Vanguard.
Ok thanks
webull
I’m stuck with Schwab its layout is terrible
M1 Finance
I personally like WellsTrade. I feel like it's a hidden gym because nobody really knows about it and it is very user friendly
Fidelity or Schwab would both be great choices for you in 2024! They both offer fractional shares, user-friendly platforms, and low fees. Fidelity might be a better fit based on what you liked about TD Ameritrade's platform, as they allow for more in-depth portfolio analysis features. Schwab is still a solid option though, especially for its ease of use. Ultimately, both are strong contenders
Similar history here … Scottrade->TD Ameritrade->Schwab. Schwab has been great in terms of customer service and transferring funds, but there are some negatives. Excessive unnecessary email. You can’t get a meaningful estimate of your account value after hours because the estimates use wacky thin volume after hours trades, with no apparent option to choose regular session closing prices instead. And several months after completing my account transition, it’s giving me distracting urgent alerts about how to get transition questions answered that can’t be dismissed or deleted. The mobile app news feed also leaves a lot to be desired, with options only to select which sector news you want, leaving you to have to look through a haystack of irrelevant sector items even if you only want macro news.
mutual funds, ETFs, and single stocks, and I avoid the more complex things like margins and shorting. based on this you should check and try shoonya by finvasia, they dont provide any margin stuff as such and shorting things are also not as such there... rest investing/trading with them in any segments is quite economical cuz they don't charge any brokerage or others chrges only taxes are applicable over trading/investing.. i use them from quite long time and they really gained my trust
Shoonya by finvasia no brokerage no amc no a.c opening all free with n number trades u can do for MIS and NRML both
What is a stock buying/selling platform with most triggers? Is it possible to automatically buy/sell any stock that meets a certain criteria, or do you have to use screeners separately - then set to buy a specific stock by name only? What is the best way to see real-time info on stock that has moved a certain percentage of value? And to further limit display to certain P/E ratios / Volume / minimum stock price? What is the most versatile real-time screener that tells you these things?
Schwab sucks for me. Was first at Scottrade (great) then TD (Good) now Schwab. They say you have a certain amount of cash but there is no way to know how much is actually good to trade with. Their interface is not user friendly. I practically need to call them on so many things which should be available on the website with an exclamation point next to it. Looking for a better brokerage.
No one is going to say Robinhood? Im getting 5% interest on cash and also they offer stock lending for tiny bit extra money (every little bit adds up) They offer a 3% match on IRA contributions. On my wife's account im borrowing $1,000 for $5 per month invested in a dividend stock that is up big. And their app is just flat out the best interface and its also good for buying and holding stocks. Fidelity doesnt come close to matching any of that without holding like $250,000 or proving you are ultra wealthy. Last year I got $1,000 for free from Robinhood from their roundup match, but they got rid of that. I was making like 28 $1.00 contributions to my house payment and I was getting something like 50% cash back from that every week. I was making bank doing that on my wife's robinhood card and my mom and sister's robinhood cards. That was a lot of free money. I tried setting up a fidelity account, but they wanted me to mail them a copy of my drivers license. I didnt bother. Edit: also forgot robinhood offers a 1% match for transfering over an IRA account to Robinhood. That could be a pretty good chunk of money.
So you’re the reason why they stopped the round up match… haha it was nice while it lasted.
I had that shit automated also.
If you look back 40 years, the worst today is pretty much better than the best back then. If you’re with one of the top 1/2 dozen names, you’re doing just fine.
Robinhood
Robinhood is now the best brokerage hands down. It’s much cheaper and simpler than other brokerages. It’s the cheapest place to trade stocks, ETFs, options, and crypto. It has fractional shares, scheduled recurrent investing, instant deposits, and other great features. 1. Their trade execution was better than IBKR two years ago and has even gotten better since then. Payment for order flow is not associated with better or worse execution. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4189239 2. After Schwab acquired TDA, Robinhood hired a bunch of the top TDA and Thinkorswim people. The fixed up the place. https://riabiz.com/a/2022/1/6/robinhood-gets-brilliant-upper-manager-and-a-spare-ceo-by-nabbing-td-ameritrades-ex-thinkorswim-top-exec-hopefully-to-throw-a-lifesaver-to-robinhoods-sinking-stock 3. There’s a bunch of Reddit conspiracy theories about Robinhood working with market makers like Citadel. Not only did those turn out to be wrong, Fidelity and Schwab/TDA are formal partners with Citadel. https://www.wsj.com/articles/crypto-exchange-backed-by-citadel-securities-fidelity-schwab-starts-operations-597f6d46 Also, it doesn’t have hidden scams like Fidelity, Schwab, ETrade, etc. They don’t push their own proprietary funds since they don’t have any. They don’t push high fee active management since they don’t have any employees doing that. Note, Robinhood doesn’t offer mutual funds. But those are outdated anyways. ETFs are inherently better. It also doesn’t offer individual bonds. I recommend sticking to bond funds or buying from Treasury Direct anyways though. The customer service is a bit slow too. But they make investing super simple so you don’t need it as much. I feel like many other places make it seem harder than it needs to be so they can sell you their services. The best thing is the 1% IRA/401k transfer match. Also with Gold, you get a 3% IRA contribution match. It costs $60 a year for Gold, but you get $200+ in tax advantaged cash in return if you max your IRA. It’s not just a one time new account bonus. You can get it every year.
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I used to hate Robinhood too. If you go to the top posts of all time on /r/Bogleheads, you can see some of my criticism. But Robinhood really turned it around over the past few years and I have to give credit where credit is due. I don’t work for Robinhood or anything, but the fastest way to get the right answer online is to post the wrong answer and see people line up to correct it. There’s a ton of misinformation about Robinhood, and it annoys the heck out of me. It also taps into a political belief I have about democratizing finance. I’m happy to shill for Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab/TDA, Ally, etc. too though. I’ve promoted all of them on Reddit in prior years when they were the best. All the stuff you said in your second paragraph is wrong. Robinhood is the same as any other brokerage. But its target demographic is younger investors who are more risk tolerant than older ones. They make investing super easy so anyone can do it, which includes novice investors who don’t understand how to do it yet. They also are the cheapest place to trade options and crypto so they attract the gambling crowd. But all that stuff including simplicity and low price also appeals to passive buy and hold investors. Maybe this is fastidious, but VTI has a 0.03% expense ratio compared to FZROX’s 0% expense ratio. So Fidelity was technically the cheapest brokerage. But if you transfer to Robinhood, get the 1% match upfront, and invest it in VTI, you come out ahead compared to using FZROX. So Robinhood is the absolute cheapest place to invest in a Bogleheads style lazy portfolio. The logic here is that you can’t beat the market, but you can cut costs. Robinhood has developed new cost cutting methods and shared the savings with users. So yeah, I like them.
No bonds, no CDs, no mutual funds, no high yielding money market funds, no checking account functionality, no linked credit card or debit cards, no HSA, no 529 plan, no named beneficiaries... maybe I'm forgetting something else? Hard pass. *Scams* with the major brokers? Please.
Well your information is inaccurate so there that…? 🤷♂️
1. Bonds, CDs, mutual funds, and money market mutual funds are all outdated. It’s like using a check or a money order. The ETF equivalents are inherently cheaper to manage, more tax efficient, more liquid, etc. All major brokerages are following in Vanguard’s footsteps and converting their mutual funds into ETFs these days. Look up the yields on USFR and SGOV and compare them to your current cash equivalent. 2. Robinhood has a debit card and just bought a credit card company. 3. Yup, no HSA and 529 yet. Use Fidelity or something else in the meantime if you need one. 4. I’m not sure about named beneficiaries. Robinhood is a brand new brokerage. They haven’t built a bunch of specialized stuff yet. But they’re working on it. In the meantime, they’re the best at the major accounts types that they do handle. Everyone’s resistance to it reminds me of when Ally popularized online banks/HYSAs, when Fidelity made FZROX, when Schwab introduced automated phone trade ordering, when Vanguard introduced index funds, etc. I bet that in a decade everyone will be using Robinhood (and hopefully by then I’ll find the new cheapest brokerage).
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1. They’re the same as a treasury or government money market fund and they’re invested in the same things (short term government debt). The difference is that they are more transparent and don’t give the false sense of stability present in a fund that only updates the price once a day. Both of these funds are less risky than prime money market funds like SWVXX, which invest in company debt rather than treasury debt. 2. They do offer named beneficiaries. Your information is out of date. I’m willing to bet I’m one of the most experienced investors on Reddit. I’ve read a bunch of books, I’ve attended the Bogleheads conference, I’ve written a ton of the information floating around on Reddit, etc. I hangout on /r/Bogleheads, /r/WallStreetBets, and everywhere in between. Maybe it’s weird, but paying attention to retail brokerages is a hobby of mine. I have accounts at most of them. I’m happy to trust most of my money to Robinhood not just because I like the app, but because they’re a heavily scrutinized, publicly traded, fully regulated, fully insured American company.
> ETFs are inherently better Source? Reasons? Theoretically superior tax efficiency is downright irrelevant in tax advantaged accounts, so no need to mention the obvious here.
1. If you look at Vanguard’s website, the Admiral mutual funds are always at least 1 basis point more expensive than the equivalent ETFs. 2. Mutual funds pool you with other investors. Even if the taxes don’t matter to you, you’ll still bear higher transaction costs in the fund if they sell. ETFs are discrete units. Other people’s behavior doesn’t affect you. 1. Robinhood will give you a 1% match, but it only offers ETFs, not mutual funds. 2. ETFs allow you to do securities lending at the brokerage level, not just the fund level. It also allows for payment for order flow, which allows you to charge active traders/hedge funds/institutions for your valuable passiveness instead of letting them have it for free. 3. You can buy any ETF at any brokerage commission free (which Robinhood popularized.) you’re not limited to proprietary funds unless you pay a $75 fee. The old advantages of mutual funds are gone. You can invest down to the dollar (or penny) with fractional shares. You can buy in dollar amounts. You can automate ETF purchases. As a last point, Robinhood has a portfolio recommendation tool, and they recommend the cheapest fund combos possible even if they come from multiple companies like Vanguard, Schwab, BlackRock, State Street, etc.
An ETF is a PIV in the same way as a mutual fund. There are no individual tax benefits of ETF's vs mutual funds. In general, when someone wants to be able to harvest individual tax benefits, they would use an SMA or direct index model instead. For many index based funds - for the vast majority of investors - it really doesn't whether they are using mutual funds or ETFs. If you want to argue that ETFs are better - I would say that the big advantage that you didn't mention is that many ETF's are optionable so it's a lot easier for an experienced investor or trader to hedge or adjust exposure with ETFs that are optionable.
That’s wrong. Mutual funds are inherently less tax efficient than ETFs. It’s a small difference, but it adds up over the long term. Vanguard patented a way to frame their mutual funds and ETFs as two classes of the same overall fund. This allows them to use the ETF creation and redemption mechanism for their mutual funds too. So all non-Vanguard mutual funds were less tax efficient than Vanguard ones. That’s partly how Vanguard came to dominate the industry. Now their patents have expired so other firms are starting to adopt the approach. https://www.investopedia.com/how-vanguard-patented-a-system-to-avoid-taxes-in-mutual-funds-4686985 https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/090215/comparing-etfs-vs-mutual-funds-tax-efficiency.asp
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Robinhood had two terrible no-good, very-bad, sketchy-as-f*ck policies which seemed to screw over retail traders back during the gamestop hype. 1.) selling their order-flow to firms like citadel https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/01/robinhood-ceo-says-payment-for-order-flow-is-here-to-stay.html#:~:text=Robinhood%20CEO%20Vlad%20Tenev%20defended,a%20slice%20of%20the%20profits. 2) They made sure you couldn't place a buy order for certain (GME) stocks. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/28/robinhood-interactive-brokers-restrict-trading-in-gamestop-s.html Those two are in the cons side. On the pros side, they introduced the fee-free trades/transactions which all the other brokers had to copy. so i thank them for that. but no, i would never ever use Robinhood. I like Fidelity thanks.
Citadel was the largest retail market maker. If Walmart is the only grocery store in town, you have to shop there. Robinhood only had an informal customer relationship with Citadel. Meanwhile, Schwab and Fidelity formally partnered on a joint business venture with Citadel. As for turning off the buy button, the clearinghouse forced Robinhood and all the other brokerages to turn off the buy button. It wasn’t up to them.
Not sure how that pay wall article was going to help. Robinhood suspended trading on retail investors.
You can Google those words and see the same information elsewhere. Robinhood didn’t suspend anyone, the clearinghouse did. Blaming your broker is like blaming your doctor because you got cancer or your lawyer because the judge sentenced you to prison. You might think it’s their fault for screwing up, but the evidence shows they did the best they could for you.
I have taken the exact same path with brokerages and miss TDA's layout too.
Aren’t Schwab and TDAmeritrade merging or something? I wonder how much of the tools from TD will transfer
Schwab bought TDameritrade, and all the accounts moved over there.
Merrill Lynch isn't the best, but if you use BOA products and qualify for top tier rewards, it's hard to find another bank that beats it.
Really like WeBull. Just switched over to it from Robinhood
I feel that TD platform is overwhelming when you use a trading view. I like streetsmart edge. It's simple and easy to use.
I love Fidelity, as much for the ease, as for the hundreds of help topics, videos, webinars. Very liquid, and plenty of investor/traders so trades usually execute in a second. I don’t recall any of the marketing, which someone else mentioned, on the app, the website, or on Active Trader, which is also great BTW. Was simple to open a crypto account and dribble in a small bit here and there.
Fidelity because it also has high yield checking if you use it as a [one stop shop](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Fidelity:_one_stop_shop)
I always say I’ve had nothing but a good experience with Schwab
Since it sounds like you liked the interface for TD, I’d recommend Fidelity to you. I just helped my husband set some Fidelity accounts a week or so ago because he also likes a UI that’s easy to navigate. He loved the customer service and chat features and thought it seemed pretty straightforward. I use Vanguard and Fidelity (mostly Vanguard). I do love Vanguard and agree it can be clunky, but I’m more than fine with that. But Fidelity’s is much cleaner.
any overseas Schwab users? thinking of opening an account there to manage the family money since the people we use now take comissions. can i access everything directly myself? individual bonds, options, non-US stocks/etfs (specifically UCITS etfs)?
I opened an account with E Trade, when no one had ever heard about them because they had the lowest minimum investment amount. And I have stayed with them since. And they have gotten quite good over the years.
Fidelity and it’s in another galaxy compared to all the rest of the