Quote:
Originally Posted by poundwise
I'm sorry friend but this is not true. When you say "most, if not all" you are incorrect. If you hold an account with E*TRADE, TD Ameritrade, Schwab, etc. you can select from many no-load, no-fee funds including many that have low and very low expense ratios. You do make a valid point in that there are some, even many, of the no-fee funds that are either load or high expense, but that is certainly not true for "most, if not all."
|
Sorry, maybe my use of "most, if not all" was a little overstated. I just went through some random choices of the NTF (No Transaction Fee) funds they had available and when I kept seeing expense ratios of 1.82%, 2.92%, etc...that lead me to believe that at least most were well above average. I'm sure there are decent ones in there but you'd just have to search for them.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by poundwise
Don't get me wrong, I see your point. Perhaps a happy medium would be to hold a brokerage account and an account with a fund family or two as well. Depending, of course, on how much money one was investing, how one was investing that money, and how much time and effort one wished to spend managing, or at least keeping track of, his/her investments.
Safari makes some good points about the account held through Fidelity as well.
|
This is basically what I was trying to say but you said it better. I think it comes down to how much time and effort someone is willing to put into it. Of course the amount of money and how it's invested comes into play when deciding brokerage vs. fund family, but I think it's more a matter of time and effort. To fully take advantage of a brokerage, one has to do some a lot of legwork on all of the funds, stocks, ETF's available and I'm willing to bet most (here I go with that "most" again
), ok, SOME, of the people who open those IRA's don't want to nor have the inclination to do so. They just open the accounts there because they think that's the only way they can do so. Whereas if they knew they could open one at a big fund family, especially by using an asset builder program provided by some and didn't really need the initial minimum, they would be happier doing that. They would have quality funds to choose from and not be bombarded with over 1400+ funds they'd have to research. What I'm thinking here is simplicity is key. IMO, that is.