Who are you investing through?

[Nish]

Looking to invest some extra money we have after the move. I'd like to have it available if needed so I don't want to put it in my retirement account.

[BrendanB]

Get an etrade account. Hold cash till market crashes which may be any day and then buy beaten down stocks and ride em up.

[russc]

If you use something like Fidelity you can hold your cash in a money market account that makes like 4% just sitting there

[bellicose]

I use Fidelity for my Roth IRA and Robin Hood for fun money.

[Euphie]

I really think M1 finance is pretty good if for long term investments, I use Robin Hood to trade options despite it's poor reputation. I tried out think or swim and it has all the capability but, that interface seems so old.

[russc]

I lost so much money in options in my early 20s, never again lol

My grandfather had a good piece advice...they're great to sell, and never buy them naked.

[gabe]

I tried M1 and it just doesn't work for me. I like having a little tighter control over my trading than a once a day window with no ability to time trades.

Think or Swim is by far the closest to a professional brokerage account. Personally I like Webull for "trading" and Vanguard for securely putting money into long-term holdings.

[Nish]

Thanks guys. Definitely not looking to start trying to beat the market or doing anything real active. I don't have time to do anything but gamble doing that. More like... I have the money to replace the roof, but the roof has another good 15 years so I'd like that money to still be able to replace a roof in 15 years. Instead of letting inflation slowly eat away at it while it earns .02% in my savings account.

[martix_agent]

I was using acorn for my long term non-retirement money, but I sold it all for a house downpayment and closed the account. I wasn't impressed at all at the growth rate, compared to how much the market explored in the 2020-2021 dates. It's more of a safe route. (do not use it if you have under 5k to invest, the monthly fees will eat into your returns)

For my roth IRA, I'm using ameratrade, and it's fine I guess, but it will not automatically invest money that I put in. I don't know if other services will do this, but I have to remember to invest the money that I'm automatically dumping into it, or it wont' do anything for me.

[Nish]

Retirement for me is TIAA, and treating me well but they keep retirement ingestion in a different company and system than non retirement so there is no reason for me to not shop around.

[euangelion]

TD/Think Or Swim for everyday.

Fidelity for retirement accounts. (Vanguard is the quote unquote holy grail for funds if you have the $$ to get it going however)

I got into M1 last year to work on a pure dividend and reinvestment focused portfolio and just because it seemed unique. I found it was a good fit with a weekly deposit and then buy into whatever pies/slices (M1 lingo) to keep things balanced the way you want them. Will check in once a month or so to tweak or add new things after some researching or market changes. Added benefit is it forced me to be a little more diligent researching companies as by design what I'm doing is much more long term with it.

As Gabe noted it is quirky with the single trade window in the morning, so you will need to plan buy/sells a little differently. You can add a second in the afternoon if you're willing to bump up to M1 plus ($125 fee after a year free).

I did have a Stash account from way back when that wasn't going anywhere and became very outdated compared to everything available now. Closed that recently and redistributed everything.

[RuleOfSines]

I'm using fidelity, the web interface is a bit clunky, but the beta mobile experience is pretty smooth. For the most part I'm doing automated investments though so I don't have to fiddle with the ui all that much.

[flyweightnate]

I bank with Schwab (surprisingly, cheap and no minimum balance) because I need a good count for foreign transactions. Aside from having zero physical presence, it's awesome.

Oh, and their funds and investment options are pretty reasonable. They're specifically targeting Vanguard.

I use Vanguard for my Roth, because when I started it, they were cheaper than Schwab.

I don't really do single stocks, just funds, so I've been riding Schwab small cap growth and stuff. But not enough money to be worth the trouble. Maybe $200 profit that will take an extra 4 hours of paperwork when I file my taxes.

[sniper97]

Fidelity

[Daniel Tiger]

Vanguard is the only company that isn’t trying to fleece you. The reason they are cheaper than all of the other asset managers is because they are set up as close to a non-profit as a financial institution can be. They are the only asset manager that have and will ever have this structure and are bound by that to return any net revenue to fund shareholders through reductions in the expense ratio.

The fund minimums do move it out of reachfor some folks and for some uses but if you have it in there you know they aren’t picking your pocket.

they are also piloting a cash plus option that will be rolled out more broadly. That offer will have no minimums and will offer very competitive returns. https://www.moneysmylife.com/vanguar...ansfer%20money.

if you want any more info let me know. Full disclosure, I work there.

[martix_agent]

Ameritrade got bought by Charles Schwab, and that's where my Roth IRA is now. Thier website is trash, but the phone ap is pretty good. I don't really understand why.

I noticed that Robinhood is offering an IRA 3% match for gold members ($5/mo) and a 1% match for a standard user. This works for account transfers as well.
Seems to me this is too good to be true. Is Robinhood a good enough company for me to trust doing this?

[mueller]

Some variables that should influence your decision
- how often are you trading
- are you looking for insights / analysis functions too or just the basics
- how important are a B&M location, and/or phone service.

I don't day trade anymore, only long term --- and I use Vanguard for holdings and schwab for banking + short term brokerage combo. Schwab's interface/tech does kind of suck but I don't trade much, it's mostly banking. Schwab has good in person and phone services as mentioned above.

Make sure funds you haven't invested yet sit in money market. Vanguard does this by default.

If you're looking for actively managed investing...
- all bets are off and
- maybe dont... it's hard to make a case for it unless you have yacht money and maybe not even then