Fidelity or Charles schwab

[aim-high]

Hi,

I have my 401k invested in Fidelity. My wife is having her 401k with Charles schwab. We want to rollover her 401k to traditional IRA. is it better for us to roll over her 401k to charles schwab IRA itself or move to Fidelity ? I think it might be better to have our retirements with 2 different financial institutions so we have access to more Mutual funds. I would like to hear your experience on whether funds in one company is better or worse than others.

Thanks

[Slug]

Both have lots of free ETF's. I have accounts at both and like them. However, my recommendation for roll-over's is Ameritrade. 100 commission-free ETF's there and they frequently give more free trades or cash bonuses for rolling over to them. Easy trading platform with access to stocks, CD's, mutual funds, corp bonds, munies, etc...

[persnicketyhousewife]

Schwab - based solely on the fact that from experience the employees are more honest, incredibly patient & helpful, & willing to do whatever it takes to make you money! Although before you do any investing, do a little background research to make sure YOU know what you're doing.

[Scanner]

I am a self-employed person who uses Schwab as both my bank and my brokerage for investments.

Here's why:

A. The banking division lets you use any ATM with PLUS symbol and reimburses you the ATM fee. I have yet to find one without a PLUS symbol, even the Dinky ATM machines in a dark gas station or on the NJ boardwalk. The banking is FDIC insured like any internet bank.
B. I have my one job set up on direct deposit; other deposits do take 3-7 days by snail mail; they give you postage paid envelopes. So, brick and mortar is irrelevant most of the time.
C. They have all kinds of mutual funds and ETF's to choose from - Fidelty, T. Rowe Price, Janus, etc. except a Biggie - Vanguard. I guess because Vanguard is so "discount" with mutual funds, they don't offer any more discounts to deal with a brokerage (in other words, they probably don't deal on their expense fees). That being said, you can still find indexed funds in there, either Schwab owned (I have a Schwab target fund for my small SEP-IRA until it reaches 10K and then I may redeploy it) and only a slightly higher fee than Vanguards (let's say their S&P 500 is .25%, Schwab's S&P 500 may be .40% or something).
D. This is the main advantage - I get to see my entire portfolio with one log in - my SEP-IRA, my Roth IRA, my EF, and my checking account. I can't tell you how much this is worth it to me. I am even opening up a seperate 529's for my boys (probably non-Vanguard) so I can move my money around, easier, from checking to brokerage accounts.
E. Their trade fee is slightly higher than Ameritrade and Scottrade - $13.95. . .but I don't trade too much anyway so I can get benefit D and A. . .maybe 3-4x/year at most now (doing a little more trading lately).

It's not for everyone but they have been helpful on customer service too, when I have needed it (like setting up my SEP-IRA).

[Slug]

I am a self-employed person who uses Schwab as both my bank and my brokerage for investments.

Here's why:

D. This is the main advantage - I get to see my entire portfolio with one log in - my SEP-IRA, my Roth IRA, my EF, and my checking account. I can't tell you how much this is worth it to me. I am even opening up a seperate 529's for my boys (probably non-Vanguard) so I can move my money around, easier, from checking to brokerage accounts.

Why not use a personal finance aggregator like Yodlee.com. It's easy to add in all of your accounts and see everything in a dashboard. It also tracks all transactions so if you use 5 different credit cards like me from different issuers, you can easily see if anything funky is going on. I like Yodlee best because you can also track your frequent flier and other rewards programs on the site. Sorry to hijack the thread with this comment.

[krantcents]

I have accounts at Fidelity, Schwab, TIAA-CREF and Vanguard. Eventually, I may reduce it to one, probably Vanguard because of the low fees. I keep Schwab because it has a local branch. I am with Fidelity because I have my 403b account there. TIAA-CREF replaced Fidelity on our approved vendors. Each provide similar and different services. Convenience is important!

[Scanner]

Slug,

I actually years ago tried to find a financial aggregrator and couldn't find one. How new is that service? I even tried to use the finance programs like "Money" and "Quicken" and I found it very non-user friendly and I don't think I am a total computer idiot.

The main thing was when I linked my investmetns and their daily share price and trying to get that to register on my net worth. . .just couldn't figure out how to set up the program.

So, I kind of use Schwab as my "aggregator" - the only downside are a slightly higher fee for indexed funds (which admittedly may add up) and the higher trade fee (I trade so little it's hardly worth mentioning the extra $30/year).

[Slug]

Scanner,

I would encourage you to give Yodlee a try. You click one link (after you do the set up 1 time) and it logs into all of your accounts and updates them to that moment. It's reasonably reliable considering the # of sites we're talking about for me (20-30 with all my rewards programs and internet banks and brokerages). It even lets you pull in Zillow values for your home to offset the mortgage loans and give you a more complete picture of net worth if you like. It also shows a 12 mth bar graph of net worth over time that I like. I think I've used them for about 5 years now. It's all completely free too.

I tried some of the other sites like Mint, but they just aren't as reliable as Yodlee has been for me. Additionally, Yodlee is typically the company providing the security for the other site aggregators as well as a bunch of banks so I don't worry so much about my passwords being there. Speaking of passwords, there's no way I can remember them all so I now go to Yodlee often to login to accounts indirectly. It's one login and one password for me to see everything going on in my accounts.

[Scanner]

Slug,

I am going to bookmark this and look into it - thanx.

Can you actually operate your bank accounts from yodlee or is just for a looksee of your net worth?

[Slug]

Slug,

I am going to bookmark this and look into it - thanx.

Can you actually operate your bank accounts from yodlee or is just for a looksee of your net worth?

I think they do have billpay services. I have never used them for that so I don't know about the ease or reliability of the service. Bills are one of those things I never want to leave to chance. I have huge CC bills because I charge virtually everything. If one of those cards does not get auto-paid, the finance charge would be massive and offset a significant portion of the rewards that I covet. I would be VERY angry. Thus, I set all that up through the CC companies who get it right.