Best firm for Boglehead investing *after* Vanguard and Fidelity?

[Redlee]

Vanguard and Fidelity are popular with Bogleheads and for good reason. But which firm would be in third place after them? If they closed tomorrow, where would you move to?

This would be for a "three fund" style portfolio of ETF's but with access to the most popular tax-loss-harvesting pairings. So access to those at low or no cost would be a priority.

The one that comes to mind is Charles Schwab. But is there something better?

[FiveK]

"Better" is often in the eye of the beholder. Schwab is indeed often mentioned along with Fidelity and Vanguard. Other than Vanguard, Boglehead-style mentions others.

[nalor511]

Schwab. My main gripe is no fractional ETF shares

[TwstdSista]

Agree - Schwab. The only drawback there is the lack of an autoliquidation feature and the fact that I can't buy fractional shares of ETFs.

[UpperNwGuy]

Schwab for sure.

[nisiprius]

I've had accounts at Vanguard, Fidelity, and Schwab, all three, and they all seemed a) fine, and b) much of a muchness.

[hammockhiker]

Vanguard and Fidelity are popular with Bogleheads and for good reason. But which firm would be in third place after them? If they closed tomorrow, where would you move to?

My wife's tIRA is at Schwab, so one more checkmark in that column if you're keeping score.

[JoMoney]

I'm at Fidelity, Schwab would be high on my list of places with a decent reputation and likely to offer a transfer bonus.
Last time I looked around, E-Trade appeared to be advertising the best transfer bonus, and are a large reputable broker that has a statement about offering a customer fraud protection guarantee, and "above SIPC coverage".

Being able to do easy online IRA to Roth IRA conversion of ETFs in-kind is something I would want to make sure was offered. I can do that at Fidelity, I'm not 100% which other brokers allow it, but I know JP Morgan does not, so it's something I would want to make sure whichever broker I was moving to offered. JP Morgan's brokerage also doesn't offer has "above SIPC coverage" nor have a customer protection guarantee that I can find.
viewtopic.php?t=355944

[dukeblue219]

Merrill Edge is a crap platform with crap service, but it's pretty popular simply for the bonus you can get on BoA credit cards by holding $100k there, which can be any normal indexed ETF.

[martincmartin]

Last night a friend mentioned an account at M1 for their 18 year old. It offers automatic rebalancing. Anybody have thoughts on M1, either for a kid who hasn't thought about investing, or for a Boglehead?

[JoMoney]

Last night a friend at up an account at M1 for their 18 year old. It offers automatic rebalancing. Anybody have thoughts on M1, either for a kid who hasn't thought about investing, or for a Boglehead?

I've looked at them, in particular because sometimes M1 has advertised larger transfer bonuses, and they also appear to have bank-like features/offerings for debit and credit cards. The things that made them look less appealing to me, is there seems to be a push for their premium services that have additional fees, they're a relatively new small-time player in the brokerage space, and I couldn't find anything stating a customer fraud protection guarantee nor having "above SIPC coverage" through a third-party insurer (mentioned in my post above), which could be argued isn't that big a deal, but is the kind of thing that would give me more peace of mind if I was looking to consolidate large sums at a single broker.

[Blue456]

It really comes down to Schwab vs E*Trade.

Schwab:
- doesn't have as good cash management options
- mutual funds are expensive to buy
- has foreign ATM and debit transactions refunds
- excellent customer service

E*Trade
- has pretty good cash management
- a lot mutual funds are free to buy and sell
- does not have debit card that refunds foreign transactions and ATMs.
- customer service not as top notch as Schwab

[dukeblue219]

Last night a friend mentioned an account at M1 for their 18 year old. It offers automatic rebalancing. Anybody have thoughts on M1, either for a kid who hasn't thought about investing, or for a Boglehead?

M1 isn't bad per se, just be aware that they explicitly describe themselves as a tech company that provides financial services. Their brokerage platform focuses on stocks, ETFs, and crypto. They do not allow you to buy, sell, or even transfer in mutual funds. That alone would be a problem for many BH but a total non-issue for most new investors.

[wfrobinette]

deleted

[steadyosmosis]

Vanguard and Fidelity are popular with Bogleheads and for good reason. But which firm would be in third place after them? If they closed tomorrow, where would you move to?

This would be for a "three fund" style portfolio of ETF's but with access to the most popular tax-loss-harvesting pairings. So access to those at low or no cost would be a priority.

The one that comes to mind is Charles Schwab. But is there something better?

Schwab is fine.

[jeffyscott]

It really comes down to Schwab vs E*Trade.

Schwab:
- doesn't have as good cash management options
- mutual funds are expensive to buy
- has foreign ATM and debit transactions refunds
- excellent customer service

E*Trade
- has pretty good cash management
- a lot mutual funds are free to buy and sell
- does not have debit card that refunds foreign transactions and ATMs.
- customer service not as top notch as Schwab

To be clear, all (available) mutual funds are now free at E-trade. No transaction fees on any that they offer and also no early redemption fees. Since I prefer mutual funds, this would be a big advantage to E-trade, if I didn't have a waiver for Vanguard, Fidelity, and Dodge and Cox at Schwab (I also assume that I could probably get a case-by-case waiver, should I ever want to buy any other transaction fee fund there, especially now that I can point to E-trade).

Currently having accounts with both, my preference for Schwab comes down to a couple really very minor differences.

E-trade can be more annoying to log on to with a security code, you have to get both your password and the security code correct or start over with both items. On Schwab, I can put them in sequentially, so a mistake on the password is found before getting to the security code entry step.

Schwab lets me effectively do exchanges of any mutual funds, while holding no cash (and no margin). I can do this by entering separate buy and sell orders. I also can, for example, enter an order to sell a mutual fund and then enter an order to buy a CD (again this is with no cash and no margin) with the anticipated proceeds. I can not do that on E-trade (nor Vanguard, Fidelity).

Also, in my area, Schwab has a local office, E-trade does not.

[PersonalFinanceJam]

Honestly, any discount broker which has the certain capabilities you value most is good. You’re using a 3 fund portfolio which can be traded and held lots of places all with a different set of strengths.

[Fpdesignco]

Fidelity and Schwab are equivalents as far as customer service, offerings, and in general technology.

[BackToSchoolDad]

I bank with Chase and like the JP Morgan self directed. Most Vanguard mutual funds are available with no transaction fees. I use VMFXX in taxable as savings and transfers are quick.

It's not the most robust platform, but for simple stuff it's good.

I have some leftover accounts at M1 and I like it well enough. Just not much granular control over transactions.

[yatesd]

Fidelity and Schwab are equivalents as far as customer service, offerings, and in general technology.

Yes, it would be inaccurate to say one of them is 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. These (3) are all top-tier and people will favor them for different reasons.

Personally, I moved away from Vanguard after 20+ years to Schwab due to poor customer service (and transfer bonus). I also recently opened a Fidelity account for the easy $150 bonus. We have a 401K still with Schwab and happy to have it there vs. other options.

[whodidntante]

Honestly, brokerages are a commodity. So I go with the one that offers the highest bonus.

[UpperNwGuy]

Schwab lets me effectively do exchanges of any mutual funds, while holding no cash (and no margin). I can do this by entering separate buy and sell orders. I also can, for example, enter an order to sell a mutual fund and then enter an order to buy a CD (again this is with no cash and no margin) with the anticipated proceeds. I can not do that on E-trade (nor Vanguard, Fidelity).

Will Schwab permit me to exchange one money market fund for another without waiting for a sell to settle before making the buy?

[NiceUnparticularMan]

We opened a brokerage account with TD Waterhouse back in the day because they had an office right across from where my wife worked, and generally seemed like a reasonably competitive brokerage. That became TD Ameritrade, and now it is becoming Schwab, although our understanding is the office will continue on under the new name.

All along the brokerage has seemed to evolve to stay competitive, and the office has been a very useful amenity at times.

So I guess my point is if you are looking for a long-term relationship with good customer service, a major outfit with a convenient local branch is a good idea.

[jeffyscott]

Schwab lets me effectively do exchanges of any mutual funds, while holding no cash (and no margin). I can do this by entering separate buy and sell orders. I also can, for example, enter an order to sell a mutual fund and then enter an order to buy a CD (again this is with no cash and no margin) with the anticipated proceeds. I can not do that on E-trade (nor Vanguard, Fidelity).

Will Schwab permit me to exchange one money market fund for another without waiting for a sell to settle before making the buy?

Do you mean you want to exchange one money market fund for another money market fund? If so, since money market is just a variety of mutual fund, it should be no different than any other. But, AFAIK, Schwab offers only Schwab money market funds and for Schwab funds you can just do an exchange and it will happen simultaneously. For Schwab funds only, if you enter what they call "sell one buy another", it happens as a same day exchange.

If you enter buy one sell another involving a non-Schwab fund, the sale happens one day and the buy on the next trading day. So to avoid that, I enter a sell order and a buy order separately (in dollars). Basically once you enter the sell order for a mutual fund, they let you enter buy orders (with a warning notice) up to that dollar amount (plus whatever cash you have).

If you meant that you want to buy another mutual fund in general, I believe that if you hold a purchased money market fund at Schwab, that would also allow you to enter buy orders up to the amount in the money market fund. But unlike Fidelity, you would have to manually sell the money market fund. So essentially it's the same as any other mutual fund, except that you can enter the buy order first if you want to.

[tvanzo]

I use Schwab and Vanguard. I can say that Schwab is far superior to Vanguard, from the platform to incredible support (Vanguard's support is lousy compared to Schwab, no live chat, slow response times, less competent staff). I still keep my vanguard because of switching costs basically.

[egri]

I use Schwab and Vanguard. I can say that Schwab is far superior to Vanguard, from the platform to incredible support (Vanguard's support is lousy compared to Schwab, no live chat, slow response times, less competent staff). I still keep my vanguard because of switching costs basically.

Same here.

[Redlee]

Schwab lets me effectively do exchanges of any mutual funds, while holding no cash (and no margin). I can do this by entering separate buy and sell orders. I also can, for example, enter an order to sell a mutual fund and then enter an order to buy a CD (again this is with no cash and no margin) with the anticipated proceeds. I can not do that on E-trade (nor Vanguard, Fidelity).

Will Schwab permit me to exchange one money market fund for another without waiting for a sell to settle before making the buy?

Do you mean you want to exchange one money market fund for another money market fund? If so, since money market is just a variety of mutual fund, it should be no different than any other. But, AFAIK, Schwab offers only Schwab money market funds and for Schwab funds you can just do an exchange and it will happen simultaneously. For Schwab funds only, if you enter what they call "sell one buy another", it happens as a same day exchange.

If you enter buy one sell another involving a non-Schwab fund, the sale happens one day and the buy on the next trading day. So to avoid that, I enter a sell order and a buy order separately (in dollars). Basically once you enter the sell order for a mutual fund, they let you enter buy orders (with a warning notice) up to that dollar amount (plus whatever cash you have).

If you meant that you want to buy another mutual fund in general, I believe that if you hold a purchased money market fund at Schwab, that would also allow you to enter buy orders up to the amount in the money market fund. But unlike Fidelity, you would have to manually sell the money market fund. So essentially it's the same as any other mutual fund, except that you can enter the buy order first if you want to.

What about with ETF shares? Can I sell shares of one ETF and then immediately buy shares in another without any type of waiting period for the trade to settle. Fidelity lets me do this, and it is very necessary in my opinion for tax loss harvesting, letting me immediately reinvest funds without any movement in the market.

[chassis]

Vanguard and Fidelity are popular with Bogleheads and for good reason. But which firm would be in third place after them? If they closed tomorrow, where would you move to?

This would be for a "three fund" style portfolio of ETF's but with access to the most popular tax-loss-harvesting pairings. So access to those at low or no cost would be a priority.

The one that comes to mind is Charles Schwab. But is there something better?

Schwab

[jeffyscott]

Schwab lets me effectively do exchanges of any mutual funds, while holding no cash (and no margin). I can do this by entering separate buy and sell orders. I also can, for example, enter an order to sell a mutual fund and then enter an order to buy a CD (again this is with no cash and no margin) with the anticipated proceeds. I can not do that on E-trade (nor Vanguard, Fidelity).

Will Schwab permit me to exchange one money market fund for another without waiting for a sell to settle before making the buy?

Do you mean you want to exchange one money market fund for another money market fund? If so, since money market is just a variety of mutual fund, it should be no different than any other. But, AFAIK, Schwab offers only Schwab money market funds and for Schwab funds you can just do an exchange and it will happen simultaneously. For Schwab funds only, if you enter what they call "sell one buy another", it happens as a same day exchange.

If you enter buy one sell another involving a non-Schwab fund, the sale happens one day and the buy on the next trading day. So to avoid that, I enter a sell order and a buy order separately (in dollars). Basically once you enter the sell order for a mutual fund, they let you enter buy orders (with a warning notice) up to that dollar amount (plus whatever cash you have).

If you meant that you want to buy another mutual fund in general, I believe that if you hold a purchased money market fund at Schwab, that would also allow you to enter buy orders up to the amount in the money market fund. But unlike Fidelity, you would have to manually sell the money market fund. So essentially it's the same as any other mutual fund, except that you can enter the buy order first if you want to.

What about with ETF shares? Can I sell shares of one ETF and then immediately buy shares in another without any type of waiting period for the trade to settle. Fidelity lets me do this, and it is very necessary in my opinion for tax loss harvesting, letting me immediately reinvest funds without any movement in the market.

I don't use ETFs, but I would guess that you can trade them that way at at any brokerage

The difference is ETF trades are executed immediately, though they don't settle for two days. Mutual fund trades are not executed until the end of the day.

[student]

Agree with others. Schwab.

[aristotelian]

I would go with Schwab over Vanguard to be honest. The only downside to Schwab is their settlement account does not give good interest. Everything else.is as good or better than Vanguard, especially their customer service.

If I had to pick one though it would be Fidelity.

[Redlee]

Schwab lets me effectively do exchanges of any mutual funds, while holding no cash (and no margin). I can do this by entering separate buy and sell orders. I also can, for example, enter an order to sell a mutual fund and then enter an order to buy a CD (again this is with no cash and no margin) with the anticipated proceeds. I can not do that on E-trade (nor Vanguard, Fidelity).

Will Schwab permit me to exchange one money market fund for another without waiting for a sell to settle before making the buy?

Do you mean you want to exchange one money market fund for another money market fund? If so, since money market is just a variety of mutual fund, it should be no different than any other. But, AFAIK, Schwab offers only Schwab money market funds and for Schwab funds you can just do an exchange and it will happen simultaneously. For Schwab funds only, if you enter what they call "sell one buy another", it happens as a same day exchange.

If you enter buy one sell another involving a non-Schwab fund, the sale happens one day and the buy on the next trading day. So to avoid that, I enter a sell order and a buy order separately (in dollars). Basically once you enter the sell order for a mutual fund, they let you enter buy orders (with a warning notice) up to that dollar amount (plus whatever cash you have).

If you meant that you want to buy another mutual fund in general, I believe that if you hold a purchased money market fund at Schwab, that would also allow you to enter buy orders up to the amount in the money market fund. But unlike Fidelity, you would have to manually sell the money market fund. So essentially it's the same as any other mutual fund, except that you can enter the buy order first if you want to.

What about with ETF shares? Can I sell shares of one ETF and then immediately buy shares in another without any type of waiting period for the trade to settle. Fidelity lets me do this, and it is very necessary in my opinion for tax loss harvesting, letting me immediately reinvest funds without any movement in the market.

I don't use ETFs, but I would guess that you can trade them that way at at any brokerage

The difference is ETF trades are executed immediately, though they don't settle for two days. Mutual fund trades are not executed until the end of the day.

I should probably call Schwab to ask about this. With Fidelity, I enter an order to sell ETF shares of, for example, VOO (the Vanguard S&P500 ETF) and then see a credit posted to my account within five minutes of entering my sell order for the proceeds, which I can then use to purchase, for example, VTI (Vanguard Total Market ETF) shares. While technically the sale does not fully settle for a couple of days, I am able to use the proceeds right away without waiting for that. I would want to be able to do that at Schwab also.

[Kookaburra]

Honestly, brokerages are a commodity. So I go with the one that offers the highest bonus.

Vanguard had better offer a much higher bonus to coax me into tolerating all of their mistakes.

[whodidntante]

Honestly, brokerages are a commodity. So I go with the one that offers the highest bonus.

Vanguard had better offer a much higher bonus to coax me into tolerating all of their mistakes.

Ha! Well, Vanguard did a weird bonus with AmEx. It required buying advice or something. They can't even do a bonus properly.

[hoops777]

Schwab has excellent customer service and local offices. I put it ahead of Vanguard.

[GAAP]

I use Schwab as a one-stop shop for IRAs, brokerage, checking. Any fund you would use for the three-fund approach should be zero cost trading. The only real disadvantage is that they no longer use a money-market sweep account if that matters to you (you can always buy a MM fund). OTOH, it's an immediate cash transfer from brokerage/IRA accounts to checking, no worries about settlement time.

[snackdog]

I don't understand the premise of the hypothetical question being raised - If V and F closed tomorrow, I would need to understand why they failed before investing anywhere else, not just jump to Schwab.

[hoops777]

I don't understand the premise of the hypothetical question being raised - If V and F closed tomorrow, I would need to understand why they failed before investing anywhere else, not just jump to Schwab.

It is pretty obvious the OP is simply looking for what people consider the third best firm.
I personally think Vanguard is number 3 but it is all opinion and personal experiences.

[Morik]

Merrill Edge is a crap platform with crap service, but it's pretty popular simply for the bonus you can get on BoA credit cards by holding $100k there, which can be any normal indexed ETF.

They also have pretty decent money market funds.

[GaryA505]

Merrill Edge is a crap platform with crap service, but it's pretty popular simply for the bonus you can get on BoA credit cards by holding $100k there, which can be any normal indexed ETF.

What kind of problems did you have with Merrill Edge?

I have an account there and it seems to be fine so far, what should I watch out for?

[GaryA505]

I use Schwab as a one-stop shop for IRAs, brokerage, checking. Any fund you would use for the three-fund approach should be zero cost trading. The only real disadvantage is that they no longer use a money-market sweep account if that matters to you (you can always buy a MM fund). OTOH, it's an immediate cash transfer from brokerage/IRA accounts to checking, no worries about settlement time.

I looked at Schwab and was really attracted because of their reputation for good service, but I am nearing retirement and I wanted automatic RMD withdrawals. They can only do that if you sign up for their "Intelligent" services and they can only do ETFs with that.

[hoops777]

I use Schwab as a one-stop shop for IRAs, brokerage, checking. Any fund you would use for the three-fund approach should be zero cost trading. The only real disadvantage is that they no longer use a money-market sweep account if that matters to you (you can always buy a MM fund). OTOH, it's an immediate cash transfer from brokerage/IRA accounts to checking, no worries about settlement time.

I looked at Schwab and was really attracted because of their reputation for good service, but I am nearing retirement and I wanted automatic RMD withdrawals. They can only do that if you sign up for their "Intelligent" services and they can only do ETFs with that.

I have Schwab and they do the RMD for us without any Intelligent service.

[deltaneutral83]

I have no need for cash rates from a broker, nor in depth customer service (like for RMD's I guess), nor mutual funds. I use Merrill because they had nice bonuses and let you have a superior BoA cash back credit card for keeping money under their BoA umbrella. I have some retirement accounts at Fidelity and it is very easy to use and their staff was a dreamboat to deal with on my in kind HSA transfer from Lively/TDA. They do partial ETF purchases on your mobile (not desktop for some reason) which is very nice for more expensive ETF's like VTI. Years ago I used TDA as they used to have competitive bonuses but more importantly they had a nice secure message service so you didn't have to phone in every time, they took 24-48 hours to respond so as long as it wasn't urgent, it was great. Schwab is buying them soon though.

[GaryA505]

I use Schwab as a one-stop shop for IRAs, brokerage, checking. Any fund you would use for the three-fund approach should be zero cost trading. The only real disadvantage is that they no longer use a money-market sweep account if that matters to you (you can always buy a MM fund). OTOH, it's an immediate cash transfer from brokerage/IRA accounts to checking, no worries about settlement time.

I looked at Schwab and was really attracted because of their reputation for good service, but I am nearing retirement and I wanted automatic RMD withdrawals. They can only do that if you sign up for their "Intelligent" services and they can only do ETFs with that.

I have Schwab and they do the RMD for us without any Intelligent service.

That's interesting. When I called them twice they said I would need to sign up for both Schwab Intelligent Portfolios and Schwab Intelligent Income to get automatic RMDs.

[White Coat Investor]

Vanguard and Fidelity are popular with Bogleheads and for good reason. But which firm would be in third place after them? If they closed tomorrow, where would you move to?

This would be for a "three fund" style portfolio of ETF's but with access to the most popular tax-loss-harvesting pairings. So access to those at low or no cost would be a priority.

The one that comes to mind is Charles Schwab. But is there something better?

Blackrock (iShares) for funds (ETFs) and Schwab for brokerage services. I would be very comfortable with an all iShares portfolio held at Schwab.

[GaryA505]

I use Schwab as a one-stop shop for IRAs, brokerage, checking. Any fund you would use for the three-fund approach should be zero cost trading. The only real disadvantage is that they no longer use a money-market sweep account if that matters to you (you can always buy a MM fund). OTOH, it's an immediate cash transfer from brokerage/IRA accounts to checking, no worries about settlement time.

I looked at Schwab and was really attracted because of their reputation for good service, but I am nearing retirement and I wanted automatic RMD withdrawals. They can only do that if you sign up for their "Intelligent" services and they can only do ETFs with that.

I have Schwab and they do the RMD for us without any Intelligent service.

OK, I just did a chat with Schwab. They said you do not have to enroll on Schwab Intelligent Portfolios and Schwab Intelligent Income to use their automatic RMD service. Maybe this changed since I asked them last time. However, they said if you have a self-directed account, they cannot sell securities to do the withdrawal. You have to sell the securities first yourself, so you have enough cash for the distribution. So, it's not fully "automatic" like it is at Fidelity, Vanguard or Merrill Edge.

[dukeblue219]

Merrill Edge is a crap platform with crap service, but it's pretty popular simply for the bonus you can get on BoA credit cards by holding $100k there, which can be any normal indexed ETF.

What kind of problems did you have with Merrill Edge?

I have an account there and it seems to be fine so far, what should I watch out for?

Not much in the way of problems per se, but the app is very limited in what it can do and the website is very non mobile friendly. It's not nearly as nice as Fidelity. But, it functions.

Reaching support is very hit or miss. It's typical big bank level of support, again, not as convenient as Fidelity or Vanguard, but it's not something I use much, either

[GaryA505]

Merrill Edge is a crap platform with crap service, but it's pretty popular simply for the bonus you can get on BoA credit cards by holding $100k there, which can be any normal indexed ETF.

What kind of problems did you have with Merrill Edge?

I have an account there and it seems to be fine so far, what should I watch out for?

Not much in the way of problems per se, but the app is very limited in what it can do and the website is very non mobile friendly. It's not nearly as nice as Fidelity. But, it functions.

Reaching support is very hit or miss. It's typical big bank level of support, again, not as convenient as Fidelity or Vanguard, but it's not something I use much, either

I guess it depends on what a customer needs in the app. It shows me what I need to know, but then I don't do frequent trading or anything like that.
I had to call support a couple of times and didn't have any problems. They even called me twice to see if I needed any more help.