<p>@busdriver11 , I have an account at Scottrade for trading, would you mind sharing why you want too move your account to TD Ameritrade? I did research about Scottrade and they seem to be the fastest when it comes to executing speed, I believe less than 3 seconds?</p>
<p>@HImom, if you don’t like mutual fund because of the expense ration, would ETF be a better choice?
I also have an account that I need to move to Vanguard when I retire. However, my husband will keep his TSP because of the lowest cost mutual fund and I notice the funds perform really well. </p>
<p>@DrGoogle, the only reason why we moved an account from Scottrade to TD Ameritrade was because it was a tiny Roth that my husband was letting me trade. I was doing a crummy job of it, so we decided to give it to his friend to manage, who takes care of our other Roths. He was able to combine it into our other accounts at TD Ameritrade. No problems with Scottrade, we just wanted to give it to someone who has done really well for us.</p>
<p>DrGoogle, I have a Roth account at TD Ameritrade & an IRA at Scottrade – and I do feel that Scottrade executes a trade noticeably faster (It seems almost instantaneous). Also the Scott fees are less, ($7 vs. $9.99/trade). If I was going to recommend one over the other, i’d go with Scottrade – but there are minor differences between each, so it really depends on what type of investing/trading you will be doing. For long term investing it won’t make much of a difference, but it could be cause a problem in a stop loss situation. I think that TD Ameritrade’s web site is nicer & more intuitive to work with, but that’s probably also a matter of personal preference. </p>
<p>I don’t know that much about ETFs but think I prefer the relatively lower volatility of index mutual funds. The price of them is net asset value at the close of the day so it’s not bouncing around so you have to fool with getting different prices and valuations throughout the day. Some even have limitations and costs if you sell too soon after a purchase, so people don’t keep investing and selling over short time periods. I prefer to adjust holdings only annually or less often, not daily or multiple times a day. </p>
<p>Am talking with Vanguard and Schwab to see what each has to offer. They both say they will help me develop a financial plan and help me figure out the index mutual funds I most want to hold. </p>
<p>HImom, some index fund has ETF, for example, Vanguard S&P 500 mutual fund is VFINX with expense of .17% and the equivalent ETF for S&P 500 for Vanguard is VOO with expense of .05%. TSP Common Stock Fund or C fund is also the S&P 500 has expense ratio of .029%. So TSP is the cheapest. However, leaving money is TSP provides the least flexibility in terms of withdrawing money, how often you can move in/out of cash, etc…</p>
<p>We just take the RMD from the TSP, so it works well for us. The Expense Ratios I saw for index funds had Vanguard Total Market Index admiral fund shares at .05%, which is higher than TSP, at .029%, but much lower than I was seeing for USAA index funds. Maybe, jym, you and your DH are investing in different mutual funds. I just want the plain vanilla ones with lowest expense ratios. My searching thus far has led me to Schwab and Vanguard. </p>
<p>Our strategy for tax advantaged accounts is to never take the money out unless forced to via RMDs. With Roth IRAs, we don’t plan to touch them and want them to just grow. We have to take RMDs, since H is older than 70.5 and are fine with the monthly payments by TSP. I guess we could have opted for smaller monthly amounts and the balance in DEc with TSP, but this is ok for us. </p>
<p>RMDs are the required minimum distributions that you have to take from traditional IRA or employer retirement plan when you are 70.5 or older. </p>
<p>TSP is the Thrift Savings Plan. It is available to fed employees. Expense ratios are the % of your investments you pay every year for handling your account and managing it .029% is $.29 per $1000. Some funds charge 1% or $10 per $1000. </p>
<p>Bogleheads is a good website for general info. </p>
<p>HImom, yes that is what DH plan to do is to take RMD when he is 70.5. However, if I understand correctly, when it disburses, it liquidates the account evenly even when the market is down. For example if you have 50% in cash and 50% in stock, it will liquidate 50% of the RMD amount from the stock account and 50% from the cash account, the same ratio that you have in your TSP account. Basically I think it disburse automatically, it does not let you state a preference. If you transfer the account to Vanguard, you can take the RMD money out of the cash account and leave the stock portion alone and let your stock account recovers. More choice and flexibility than TSP.</p>
<p>Once a year, you can direct TSP as to how you want your RMD. You can specify a particular monthly amount and if that total is below your RMD, you can have a check for the rest of the year’s RMD sent in Dec automatically. TSP does sell a proportionate amount from each of our 5 TSP index funds every month to pay our monthly RMD amount. </p>
<p>It is true you can make a one time rollover of your entire TSP to a traditional IRA, where you can have more flexibility on investments, timing and amount of distributions, etc. The trade off is that expense ratios “ER” and administrative fees I’ve seen with other custodians of IRAs are much higher than the $.29/year per $1000 managed a year with TSP. </p>
<p>Folks have to decide how much they like what TSP offers for it’s low prices vs what other offer for the higher rates they charge–up to $22/year per $1000 and more. These amounts really add up over time and erode the money available to you. </p>
<p>I’m happy with plain vanilla at bargain prices. We have other sources of funds we use for other expenses and needs. We like finding places that will provide our needs at low prices. I like the $.50/year per $1000 Vanguard charges for one of its index funds and will be buying a significant amount of it. </p>
<p>Personally, I’d rather keep the $21.71/year or $21.50 per $1000 invested than paying that excess amount to a custodian of my funds. Buying the stock and bond markets works for us, and let’s us sleep well at night, especially when we know our earnings won’t be eroded by high ER. </p>
<p>Anyone with thoughts about AAPL? Have never heard of a 7 to 1 stock split before. H is wavering about us having it as a sole stock, as it is already in many index funds which we hold. This thread has been so quiet!</p>
<p>Can anyone tell us what new innovative products Apple intends to unleash on the public sometime in the future? It would be much easier to know how cheap the stock is if this information was readily available.</p>
<p>My crystal ball is sadly cloudy. Did notice some increase in share prices of AAPL after the stock split announcement. China MAY a huge market for them too. </p>
<p>Index EFTs vs index mutual funds for taxable accounts, assuming no trading costs for either and similar expense ratios, buying and holding for 10+ years! Are ETFs or funds more tax efficient on an annual basis, in terms of not having to pay much in capital gains or other taxable events while holding the assets?</p>
<p>Am thinking Vanguard total market index and similar funds. Thanks. </p>
<p>I read somewhere that experts know a lot more than we mortals do. As a result, what we know is usually already priced in. Stock split may attract retail investors driving up the price. Who knows.</p>
<p>Himom, that’s graet question. I’d like to know, too. People say for Vanguard funds mutual funds and EFTs are the same just in different holding class. I don’t know if that also applies to income.</p>
<p>The Vanguard doc I just read on Bogleheads.org, wiki ETFs vs mutual funds says that for Vanguard, they have a special patent in place thru 2023, which treats ETFs as another class of mutual funds, so no tax advantage. It also points out that you can concpvert from mutual funds to the identical ETFs but not the other direction. </p>
<p>Will keep reading up so I can ask intelligent Qs when speaking to Vanguard FAdvisor at Vanguard and our CPA. Lots to figure out. </p>
<p>Yea, I’m sure that for us folks out of the loop, the financial announcements that surprise us have long been known by the a Buffets and pension fund investors. </p>
<p>That’s good to know. We hold both, etfs and mutual funds. I don’t quite understand how that works. ETFs distribute divdends while mutual funds distribute bothe dividends and capital gains distributions. I just assume the difference is too minor to be bothered with. When we tarde, we trade etfs. It is cheaper to trade etfs.</p>
<p>With our Vanguard account, trading in either ETFs or mutual funds is supposed to be free. Will confirm when we speak with the FAdvisor this week. </p>
I just yell down the hall ;)</p>