Best Place for Roth IRA

What's the best place to start an IRA?

Here is what is important:

a) Complete online access
b) Low or no yearly fee
c) Variety of investments

I hear Vanguard is good and has great ETFs, I also hear Sharebuilder is good.
I'd like to hear everyone's opinion on these and others.

Thanks.

If you already have an eligible account with Fidelity (my 401a/403b is, don't know what else qualifies) then a Roth (and perhaps other accounts) is fee-free. It may be based on value of holdings, but I'm not sure. Fidelity sure does have a ton of funds, though.

Be careful, vanguard's become a landmine of minimums. And if you want etf's you'll need a brokerage account - don't matter if it's at vanguard or not.


U might try the search button and read up on various brokerages/fund families...

I use firstrade since it's low trade comission ($6.95) and also there's no fees for no load mutual funds and free dividend reinvestment.

If you want indexing and low expense ratio, vanguard is the place to be.

If you want the most diverse variety of funds, fidelity is hard to beat.

If you want to trade stocks, stocktrade,firsttrade,etc are well suited.

Fidelity lowered the expense on their index funds last year to below that of Vanguard funds.

OP need to provide more info to get meaningful answers.
Asset type (stocks vs funds), investment style (index vs active), etc.

My general recommendation is a discount brokerage like Ameritrade if you want to invest on your own; or Schwab if you need more hand-holding. This way, you can buy index-like ETFs, or individual stocks, or mutual funds. Or you can open an IRA directly with a mutual fund company if you plan to invest a significant chunk of assets in funds from that family. I would recommend Vanguard, Fidelity, Dodge & Cox, etc. You want to avoid load fund families like American. Their funds are great; but are better suited for 401K / 529 or other pooled plans where loads are waived.

Some people would argue Roth IRAs are not well suited for stocks because of the difficulty to claim a loss. I generally don't agree. IRAs are good for active investors. This is especially true in the period right after you initial contribution/conversion, where you have some flexibility to claim a loss through distribution/re-characterization and the potential to amass good returns and avoid capital gains.

Roth IRA Losses

miserly said: manuel said: No problem with vanguard but worth noting that etrade, fidelity and ETFs all have vanguards expenses beat on index funds.

while i agree, many fidelity index funds have high min. (10k+)

Not sure that is the case for Fido Roth IRA, lower minimum may apply.

Tradeking = $4.95

When manuel and timetosave talk...people (should) listen...

you guys remind me of the old EFHutton commercials. I imagine all the 20 somethings on this board with a blank stare.

Price's s&p500 funds has a 35 bps and says $2.50 quarterly for <10K in that fund. No solution for small investors who like index funds there.

actually the vanguard investor class s&p500 is 18 bp, the admiral is 9bp.
the fido normal class is 10bp, the advantage is as said 7bp.
etrade's normal class is 9bp.

spy etf is 10bp
vti vanguard etf is 7bp # not a s&p500 fund btw

All that said I think it comes down to how you'll be putting the money in and where you'll invest - seems like more a OP research issue than a thread.

Aqan, what exactly are you talking about? An IRA (either traditional or Roth)is YOUR account and opening one has absolutely NOTHING to do with your employer (assuming you're not self employed).

bdleonard said: Aqan, what exactly are you talking about? An IRA (either traditional or Roth)is YOUR account and opening one has absolutely NOTHING to do with your employer (assuming you're not self employed).

I work for a financial company.. and I'm not allowed to open a brokerage anywhere else and If I want to invest in stocks in my IRA it can only be held in my company.

s0meguy said:
What happens if you do have an acct somewhere else? How would they know?
They would... they have the right to monitor my credit report..

aqan said: At my work we are not allowed to keep outside IRA.. and they charge $40/yr for IRA custodial fees and $50 to close your account..
so far that was keepng me from opening an IRA.. but I guess this year I'll start.. once my balance goes up $40 will not pinch as much..

I work for a financial company.. and I'm not allowed to open a brokerage anywhere else and If I want to invest in stocks in my IRA it can only be held in my company.If your company sticks it to its own employees like that, how much worse do they treat retail clients?

larrymoencurly said: aqan said: At my work we are not allowed to keep outside IRA.. and they charge $40/yr for IRA custodial fees and $50 to close your account..
so far that was keepng me from opening an IRA.. but I guess this year I'll start.. once my balance goes up $40 will not pinch as much..

I work for a financial company.. and I'm not allowed to open a brokerage anywhere else and If I want to invest in stocks in my IRA it can only be held in my company.If your company sticks it to its own employees like that, how much worse do they treat retail clients?

With Fidelity you can have either a "mutual fund" account or a "brokerage" account. Basically a brokerage account is a mutual fund account plus more. I asked them why anyone would want a "mutual fund" account and they said people in the industry are restricted when opening brokerage accounts. Now that I think about this, I have always been asked is I am a broker or in that business when opening an investing account. So I think this is standard practice and probably falls under some SEC rule or something.

gooru said: I like Schwab. No minimums and no fees, except for those associated with trades.

Any thing good to buy in Schwab. I don't think Fidelity and Vanguards are free with Schwab.

I just recently moved my Vanguard Roth IRA fund to another fund. After doing so, I'm not sure I made the right choice. Are there any penalties of any sort when moving from fund to fund? If anyone has a link to where this is talked about, that would be great.

Thanks.

I like vanguard and I'm really happy there.
If you like index funds, then they are the king. It's true that recently fidelty lowered their operating expenses, but they don't have the selection of inex funds that vanguard has, not even close.

Some of the other brokers like scottrade sound good and all, but you can't sell (reblance) unless you wait 6 months and some of the other funds have other restrictions. Therefore I believe if you want funds at vanguard, then just go through vanguard. Except for course for their ETFS as it doesn't matter, their fees aren't as impressive.

I have a brokerage account with Ameritrade and I just got an offer in the mail from them to open an roth IRA account with 2k min and get 15 commission free trades. I was thinking it might be easier to just stick with one firm to make it easier to manage accounts, transfer funds, etc.

Also since they are merging with TD Waterhouse, they might have access to more tools and investment choices. Does anyone out here have a first hand experience with Ameritrade's Roth IRA accounts. It will be great if you share your experiences.

Thanks.

I had two 401K before. I left 20K of my 401K in company A (managed by ml and then trowe) and 10K (managed by NEF) in company B. For couple years, it never grew, probably yeah, around 2K total for 4 years. Then, I moved all to Vanguard this year, I saw an increment of 5K within a year. I have a diversified portfolio, for some, maybe increment of 5K is not great, but I wished I had done this 4 years ago.
Lesson to learn is: never leave your 401K behind because company 401K selection is not as great.