Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with brokerage

Help a noob invest with Schwab!

rabbitrabbit — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:03:07 -0800

Schwab investment instructions for the complete noob? Just opened a Schwab One brokerage account in conjunction with the Schwab Bank Invest First Visa Signature Card.

First, if anyone has set up a One account recently, what information to you need to have when you call to activate MoneyLink? I hate being unprepared so any foreknowledge of what they need from me before I call would be great. Test deposits into my checking account have already been confirmed, so I'm not sure exactly why they need me to call now.

I want to use the rewards from the Visa which are credited to the account monthly to invest in index funds such as SWPIX or maybe a target retirement fund such as SWERX. How do I set it up to do this? It looks like once I buy into the fund I want, there are automatic settings that I can view and select, but unfortunately I can't see them until I buy in. Can I just tell them to sweep whatever's in the cash account into my chosen fund every month?

Any other experiences you have had with investing using the Schwab One brokerage account would also be welcome. There is so much information out there on investing, it's very hard to cut through all the noise.

Discount international brokerage

atrazine — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:34:01 -0800

Can anyone recommend an online discount brokerage that can execute trades internationally? All the online brokerages I've looked at that do international trades at all do them over the phone and charge a lot for these trades. I'm located in Dubai if that's relevant.

How do I check the 'health' of my brokerage?

random1destiny — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:58:36 -0800

How can I find out the health of my investment brokerage (like Fidelity.com, E-Trade, etc)? Can brokerages even crash and lose my money like in a bank failure? Much public focus has been placed on having a bank fail and people not getting their money. I know that in the case of banks, the money is covered up to 100,000 of FDIC coverage and there are sites to look up the health of your bank like http://www.bauerfinancial.com which give banks star ratings based on their current financial stability.

However, what if you have your money in stocks/mutual funds in a place like Fidelity.com or E-Trade? Can these places fail and not be able to pay you back? Are there places that rate how safe/healthy these institutions are?

Discount brokerage experiences?

small_ruminant — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:37:12 -0800

I'm interested in both good and bad experiences people here have had with discount brokerages. Previous questions have touched on this, but they're from a couple of years ago, now, and a lot can change in a company in that time.

This account will be used primarily to trade mutual funds.

There is some chance these assets (about $150k) will be transferred into a managed account within a year. This is in no way certain; I mention it only because things like onerous transfer or account closing fees are things that are relevant information.

Thank you!

How can I view all my brokerage accounts at once?

iknowizbirfmark — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 10:23:12 -0800

Are there any websites which will access several different online brokerage/401k accounts and display the information all in one place? Despite the privacy concerns, I like websites/programs like Mint and Wesabe, which will access your banking and credit accounts and display the information in a centralized location, with other tools which are useful to the management of these accounts. I would love to have a similar service which I could easily, over the web, see all my brokerage and 401k accounts. I've tried just putting the holdings into Google Finance and other similar tools, but because of the way dividends are paid and mutual funds are constantly revalued, and because one of my 401k accounts is being actively paid into, the holdings and amounts are never accurate. Does any website do this, preferably for free? Security and privacy are important, but I could put up with there being ads on teh site.

Stock market simulator

antipasta_explosion — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 12:25:45 -0800

Is there a good simulator for playing the stock market with imaginary money? I tried Yahoo Finance portfolio, but it requires you to go and look up the trading price (extra steps). Plus when you want to add something on the weekend, you have to wait until Monday morning when the markets open and see what the price is that you'd -really- be getting. Too much work!

So is there a place where I can dump some play money and pretend that I'm doing real selling & buying, with the system taking care of the legwork with the imaginary trades?

Beginning investor, seeking basic opinions and links for more research & self-teaching!

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 10:20:06 -0800

Total beginner to investing and finance, researching how to start investing maybe $2K each year, mostly in socially responsible mutual funds -- and how a young, healthy person should balance retirement investment with other kinds of investments. (I'm coming from a low-income background, so I haven't watched people invest or had people talk to me about it -- I'm very open to criticism if you see me missing important points.)

Quick background: U.S. citizen, female, almost 30, no medical issues at all (yet) and hoping to live 50+ more years. No existing investments now, and hopefully never a 401K (editorial/creative freelancer and totally in love with my work -- so I'm saving for "old age / medical care" rather than "sudden end of salary"). I have a simple standard of living (for an American) and want to live simply my whole life. I don't want kids. I have an emergency-fund in an account that earns close to 5% interest but is totally liquid. Other than that I have no savings or assets to speak of, but I'm debt-free. I'm hoping to spare maybe 2K/year, from now on, to invest.

So far, my research suggests I should have a Roth IRA. I want most of my Roth contributions to go in a socially responsible mutual fund (let's accept for this thread that I've done enough research to decide that "responsible" is more important to me than "highest interest regardless of sources"... if you're interested in debates on responsible investing, see here and here; chart of responsible funds and their relative performance here). So I'll need an account in a brokerage where I can do everything by myself online (possibly Scottrade or Ameritrade -- opinions?).

Once I have this account, can I also just buy individual stocks from any companies I like? Will it be clear in my account how to designate each new contribution as either part of my Roth IRA or part of a shorter-term investment? And actually, is it important to balance my Roth contributions with other shorter-term investments, or should all my $$ go into my Roth (since I could withdraw my original contributions from it in an emergency)? For stocks, are there databases where you can search stocks by, say, a combo such as industry type + price for one share + different performance indexes? Maybe even with flags (either self-applied or third-party) for "green"/"responsible"/etc.?

Thanks for any and all answers and/or suggestions re. where I should go to teach myself more!

Books about the systems behind banking

qslack — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 20:04:06 -0800

Are there books that explain, in great detail, the systems that clear trades (equities and options) on the markets and shuffle funds among banks in the U.S.? This is a personal curiosity. I know how all of these things work, but I am interested in the mechanisms behind them.

Specifically, I'm looking for books (or other resources) that explain in detail what happens in...

Buying a stock -- info about how big brokerages work the spread, and also info about the electronic systems that provide liquidity for smaller trades

Shorting a stock -- what steps does the broker take to find a bank from which to borrow the shares?

Buying/selling options -- how is the exchange of the option contract between buyer and seller handled?

Transferring money -- details about ACH (the article's "ACH process" section is good, but I'd like to read more about what happens on the Fed's side)

In summary, where can I read more about the systems that transfer huge amounts of money among banks and people?

Starting up a competitor to E*Trade

Alt F4 — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 04:37:37 -0800

What would it take to start (in terms of licensing and registering) a "competitor" (in a very vague and loose sense of the word) to E*Trade? If I were to go to a stock broker, he'd have to be licensed to sell me securities. If I use E*Trade or a similar online broker, how is that licensing handled? If I started an E*Trade-like company, would I need to be licensed? Could I hire someone who's licensed? Because the users of E*Trade aren't dealing with an individual broker (but rather a database / network), do they have to go through anybody who's licensed? (I'm guessing that's a "yes," but whom would they go through?)

Obviously, larger companies like E*Trade will have licensed brokers on staff who have moved laterally from other brokerages. But when companies like that are starting out, what is required of them to legally be a connector between people who want to buy stock and people who want to sell stock?

I also know that such a company would need to register with the NASD and the SIPC, but what other regulatroy hurdles would there be?

To clarify: I'm not interested in competing with E*Trade and its ilk directly. I have an idea that, if I can take it anywhere, would probably compete indirectly with them, and would probably require the same sorts of licensing. I'm curious about how that works. I'm not currently in the finance world, and I know that you have to be "sponsored" to take the Series __ exams. Also, I'd rather focus on the business development end of things with this "startup" (read: kitchen table idea), rather than learning the minutia of securities. This is all a longshot (kick de bucket) I know, but I would love to see this idea go somewhere.

Apartment in DC

XQUZYPHYR — Fri, 08 Oct 2004 12:28:10 -0800

I want to thank everyone for their advice on my previous question about getting to DC for an interview. I'm at the next phase of my problem now: I got the job. That's not the problem; starting a week from Monday is. I need an apartment in Washington, DC in... yeah, umm, five days or so. I'm looking up brokers right now, any other options? Good websites? This is my first move ever, so I'm mind-numbingly ignorant about this.

How safe is it to have a brokerage hold your securities in street name?

crumbly — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 07:21:46 -0800

How safe is it to have a brokerage hold your securities in street name? My dad, who's fluent in lawyer, took a look at my online broker's terms and conditions agreement and found it to be extremely one sided (in favor of the brokerage). I suppose this is to be expected. But some of the conditions are giving me cause to reconsider the value of my beloved convenience. For example, if I have a debit balance of any size (big or small), the brokerage has the right to loan out everything in my account without my consent. I can understand them loaning out an amount equivalent to my balance owed, but everything? Seems a bit extreme.

So my questions, in addition to the above, are What happens to my holdings if the broker happens to go belly up? Is it measurably safer to have the certificates issued in my name and hold onto them myself (white knuckled in the darkest corner of my basement)? And do the terms and conditions vary at all between brokers, or are they fairly standard across the industry?