What do people on WCI use for their taxable accounts?

[RogerRovers]

I'm maxing out my 403b/457 plans at work, HSA, and Roth IRA. I'd like to start investing in a taxable account with my excess income (refinanced loans at 1.95% through First Repubic, so in no rush to pay off extra loan debt).

 

Wondering which brokerage firms folks on WCI use for their taxable investment accounts. From my reading, it sounds like most online firms these days are pretty comparable, and offer all the same basics for similar cheap (in some cases free) commissions. Just curious what everyone else is using.

 

Thanks!

[poll id="84"]

[CordMcNally]

I use Vanguard for taxable because that's what I've always used. My 401k is through Fidelity. I think either of those would be a great choice for your taxable account.

[The White Coat Investor]

My taxable mutual fund account is at Vanguard. Right now it has tax-exempt money market fund, TSM, and TISM in it. But most of my real estate investments are also in taxable accounts spread around in various locations.

[Donnie]

Vanguard.

[artemis]

Another happy Vanguard customer here!

[Hatton]

Vanguard.

[Hank]

My wife's had a brokerage account at Schwab since high school, so we have a taxable account there.

Fidelity and Vanguard are excellent choices as well.

[Zaphod]

Interactive Brokers and TD Ameritrade.

[VagabondMD]

Fidelity and Vanguard, about 60:40

[Ryan]

Fidelity before just selling everything to pay off low interest debts. Basically I started buying BlackRock's total market fund ITOT because there was no commission fee and just kept buying it. We'll probably open a TD Ameritrade account later this year and then perhaps IB Traders-- their margin rates are unbelievable.

[Lithium]

I like Merrill Edge the best because of all the free trades I get in Preferred Rewards.  Then I don't have to restrict myself to Vanguard, iShares, or Schwab options - I can have all three.  However, I keep most of the taxable money in E*Trade.  What I do is make new purchases in Merrill Edge then transfer it out to E*Trade for a nice bonus when I have enough to qualify for it.

[ENT Doc]

Vanguard, but with some reservations.  They can construct funds like champions and have a unique ownership structure that gives them their competitive advantage, but when it comes to a brokerage service they really need to get their act together.  They make it way too hard to give them your money.  Think about that.

[MaxPower]

I also use Vanguard. For the most part it has been fine. I had our Roth IRA accounts there already so it was relatively easy to start my taxable account there and they have good, low cost funds that probably meet the needs of most, if not all, taxable investors. Their website is a bit clunky at times.

[G]

Vanguard for my vanilla total market type investing.

Wells Fargo for trading/individual stocks.

[Zaphod]

Lithium wrote:

I like Merrill Edge the best because of all the free trades I get in Preferred Rewards.  Then I don’t have to restrict myself to Vanguard, iShares, or Schwab options – I can have all three.  However, I keep most of the taxable money in E*Trade.  What I do is make new purchases in Merrill Edge then transfer it out to E*Trade for a nice bonus when I have enough to qualify for it.

Click to expand...

My SEP is at Merrill, I really like it except for the excessive hand holding and not allowing you to trade some things since they are 'dangerous' while allowing worse things to be purchased just fine. The 3 cent trades are the best. They also have good analysis tools and tracking for your portfolio. My wifes accounts are at fidelity and there is no way to track performance or anything that I can find anywhere, very frustrating. They are overall great.

Interactive Brokers is excellent but you have to already know what you want, how to arrange things to your desired setup, etc...and understand these things fully. This is not for the average indexer or set it and forget it person. You're on your own, and they will ruthlessly change rules and sell your positions and they DGAF. Their trading mechanism is intuitive and lightning fast if things are moving and youre on the hunt.

TD Ameritrade has a very nice setup for lots of basic stuff and is visually appealing with some very nice tools like analyze, and spread trader, however, their ticket entry system is goofy and slow with a lot of friction, fine for normal use but lame and too many steps for most. Their basic account page lacks simple and obvious tracking measures, ie, performance per time period, benchmark comparison, etc...