Author Topic: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?  (Read 1319 times)

joe189man

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Is there any issue with using just fidelity or just vanguard, Schwab or others for all investments?

what do you do?

geekette

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Re: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?
« Reply #1 on: January 23, 2023, 10:20:13 AM »
We just have ours at 2, mostly because we're too lazy to move the last from Fidelity to Vanguard (or the other way around).

ChickenStash

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Re: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?
« Reply #2 on: January 23, 2023, 10:25:55 AM »
My opinion, what is being invested in matters more than the firm managing it. VTI is VTI, no matter who manages the shares for me. As long as the investment firm's costs and features meet my needs then it doesn't matter. All my investments are either at Vanguard for the accounts I direct or with my employer's 401k manager.

From a practical standpoint, I consolidated all my accounts so I didn't have to deal with multiple policies, passwords, UIs, statements, etc. I like my finances to be as simple as I can possibly make them.

pdxvandal

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Re: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?
« Reply #3 on: January 23, 2023, 10:38:48 AM »
I opened my first brokerage account in 2007 with Vanguard and moved a previous employer's IRA into it. Like a previous poster has said, I've been too lazy to move it anywhere else, and I've been generally pleased with them although other brokerages have certainly caught up. I also have an HSA with Fidelity and a workplace 401/457 that has both Vanguard and Fidelity.

Scandium

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Re: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?
« Reply #4 on: January 23, 2023, 01:53:54 PM »
I use Schwab as my bank, and keep another taxable and Roth account there. Somewhat to not have everything in the vanguard basket, but it's an uneven split, more than 80-85% is at vanguard (rollover IRA+taxable). I'll probably keep it at $50k or so of taxable at schwab. Plus I put a few thousand into individual stocks, which is much better at schwab. If there ever is a vanguard issue I have money elsewhere until it gets fixed, but at some point have to trust that vanguard won't go poof with all my money.

Actually my HSA is at Fidelity, so that's another "backup" source at another firm.

srrb

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Re: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?
« Reply #5 on: January 23, 2023, 07:37:58 PM »
My opinion, what is being invested in matters more than the firm managing it. VTI is VTI, no matter who manages the shares for me. As long as the investment firm's costs and features meet my needs then it doesn't matter. All my investments are either at Vanguard for the accounts I direct or with my employer's 401k manager.

From a practical standpoint, I consolidated all my accounts so I didn't have to deal with multiple policies, passwords, UIs, statements, etc. I like my finances to be as simple as I can possibly make them.

+1

MustacheAndaHalf

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Re: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?
« Reply #6 on: January 23, 2023, 09:16:12 PM »
Is there any issue with using just fidelity or just vanguard, Schwab or others for all investments?
Brokerage accounts are less stable for Americans who live abroad ("expats").  Fidelity, for example, doesn't allow expats to open new accounts (but I believe they can keep existing accounts).  Congress adds new restrictions, which can be a factor in brokerages closing expat accounts (like Merril Edge for any expat with under $1 million there).  To diversify the real risk of account closure, I opened accounts at Interactive Brokers (IBKR) and Schwab International.

nalor511

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Re: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?
« Reply #7 on: January 24, 2023, 12:09:25 AM »
I move my ETFs around to whoever has the largest bonus at the time. This is not chump change, on the order of $15k-20k/yr

As long as a broker is covered by SIPC/excess-SIPC, and I can transact online (without calling), it's fair have

dcheesi

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Re: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?
« Reply #8 on: January 24, 2023, 05:29:31 AM »
I've accumulated several brokers through no fault of my own; one for employer stock, one for 401k, a couple of inherited accounts, etc. Vanguard is the only one I've chosen of my own accord, and that's where I put all of my post-tax investment money. I do like knowing that the others are there, in case something crazy happens (account hacked, or "something" happens to Vanguard), but I don't go to the trouble of actively parceling out my voluntary contributions to the others.

Scandium

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Re: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?
« Reply #9 on: January 24, 2023, 08:10:21 AM »
I move my ETFs around to whoever has the largest bonus at the time. This is not chump change, on the order of $15k-20k/yr

As long as a broker is covered by SIPC/excess-SIPC, and I can transact online (without calling), it's fair have

Really? All I've seen are fairly minor, and IMO not worth the hassle of moving tens of thousands around
https://www.bankrate.com/investing/best-brokerage-account-bonuses/
Most here are $100, up to maybe $600 if you deposit $200k. Does it have to be cash?
ok, one is $2k bonus. Still not worth the work and disruption to me, but ok.

FLBiker

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Re: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?
« Reply #10 on: January 24, 2023, 10:17:27 AM »
We're spread out at lots of firms, but I wouldn't recommend it.  For us, it's advantageous because we are US citizens living in Canada as permanent residents.  Thus, not all brokerages will do business with us for all types of accounts.  Plus, these rules can change at any time, and thus I like having a foot in several doors, just in case we need to shift stuff around.  If I were a US resident, though, I'd keep it as simple as possible and just pick one.

That said, if it really is possible to get bonuses in the $10K+ per year range, I could see playing that game.

joe189man

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Re: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?
« Reply #11 on: January 24, 2023, 10:31:12 AM »
My opinion, what is being invested in matters more than the firm managing it. VTI is VTI, no matter who manages the shares for me. As long as the investment firm's costs and features meet my needs then it doesn't matter. All my investments are either at Vanguard for the accounts I direct or with my employer's 401k manager.

From a practical standpoint, I consolidated all my accounts so I didn't have to deal with multiple policies, passwords, UIs, statements, etc. I like my finances to be as simple as I can possibly make them.

+1

This is kinda what i was thinking we need to set up some backdoor iras and having another login and password to forget and reset constantly

HeadedWest2029

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Re: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?
« Reply #12 on: January 24, 2023, 01:19:56 PM »
I move my ETFs around to whoever has the largest bonus at the time. This is not chump change, on the order of $15k-20k/yr

As long as a broker is covered by SIPC/excess-SIPC, and I can transact online (without calling), it's fair have

Really? All I've seen are fairly minor, and IMO not worth the hassle of moving tens of thousands around
https://www.bankrate.com/investing/best-brokerage-account-bonuses/
Most here are $100, up to maybe $600 if you deposit $200k. Does it have to be cash?
ok, one is $2k bonus. Still not worth the work and disruption to me, but ok.

I've literally never heard of Tastyworks (weird name for a brokerage), but getting $4k for moving $100k into 2 separate individual brokerage accounts seems pretty solid actually.
Unless this is a FTX situation

Scandium

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Re: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?
« Reply #13 on: January 25, 2023, 01:21:38 PM »
I move my ETFs around to whoever has the largest bonus at the time. This is not chump change, on the order of $15k-20k/yr

As long as a broker is covered by SIPC/excess-SIPC, and I can transact online (without calling), it's fair have

Really? All I've seen are fairly minor, and IMO not worth the hassle of moving tens of thousands around
https://www.bankrate.com/investing/best-brokerage-account-bonuses/
Most here are $100, up to maybe $600 if you deposit $200k. Does it have to be cash?
ok, one is $2k bonus. Still not worth the work and disruption to me, but ok.

I've literally never heard of Tastyworks (weird name for a brokerage), but getting $4k for moving $100k into 2 separate individual brokerage accounts seems pretty solid actually.
Unless this is a FTX situation

Never heard of it either, and not sure I'd trust them.. Like I said I'm not sure if it has to be cash either, as I don't have $100k lying around.. If you can transfer your ETFs that's slightly easier. And it does say you need to hold it there for one year. Eh.. Still not sold on this being worth it personally

samanil

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Re: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?
« Reply #14 on: January 25, 2023, 03:49:25 PM »
I transferred 50k from Chase to Interactive Brokers about a year ago, and they gave me IBKR stock now worth $584, which I can cash out soon. It took less than an hour, so that's an hourly rate that I find worth it. Needless to say, I'll keep shipping my assets around for bonuses like that, which should only increase well into the thousands as my net worth grows.

PDXTabs

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Re: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?
« Reply #15 on: January 25, 2023, 03:57:37 PM »
Is there any issue with using just fidelity or just vanguard, Schwab or others for all investments?

what do you do?

If you are over the limit for SIPC you might want to break it up. Also, I don't know how long it would take to make a SIPC claim but it doesn't sound fast. There might be benefit just in general to having two accounts.

For historical reasons I have a 401k with Fidelity, an IRA with Vanguard, and a brokerage with Schwab. I really like Schwab.

Scandium

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Re: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?
« Reply #16 on: January 26, 2023, 11:20:15 AM »
I transferred 50k from Chase to Interactive Brokers about a year ago, and they gave me IBKR stock now worth $584, which I can cash out soon. It took less than an hour, so that's an hourly rate that I find worth it. Needless to say, I'll keep shipping my assets around for bonuses like that, which should only increase well into the thousands as my net worth grows.

$50k in cash, or shares/ETFs?

samanil

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Re: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?
« Reply #17 on: January 26, 2023, 04:43:22 PM »
I transferred 50k from Chase to Interactive Brokers about a year ago, and they gave me IBKR stock now worth $584, which I can cash out soon. It took less than an hour, so that's an hourly rate that I find worth it. Needless to say, I'll keep shipping my assets around for bonuses like that, which should only increase well into the thousands as my net worth grows.

$50k in cash, or shares/ETFs?

VTSAX, it was an "in kind" transfer

TomTX

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Re: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?
« Reply #18 on: January 27, 2023, 07:09:41 AM »
I move my ETFs around to whoever has the largest bonus at the time. This is not chump change, on the order of $15k-20k/yr

As long as a broker is covered by SIPC/excess-SIPC, and I can transact online (without calling), it's fair have

Really? All I've seen are fairly minor, and IMO not worth the hassle of moving tens of thousands around
https://www.bankrate.com/investing/best-brokerage-account-bonuses/
Most here are $100, up to maybe $600 if you deposit $200k. Does it have to be cash?
ok, one is $2k bonus. Still not worth the work and disruption to me, but ok.
Keep in mind that the Merrill bonus is boosted to $1k/$200k deposit if you happen to have top tier Preferred Rewards status with BoA. Merrill used to (maybe still does) occasionally boost the base bonus to $1k/$200k, which is when I transferred.

An In-kind IRA transfer of VTI worked fine for me getting the bonus when I swapped to Merrill.

Sure $600/$1,000 isn't that much compared to a $200k IRA. I don't think that's the right way to look at it.

Where else are you going to get $600 or $1,000 for maybe an hour of work setting up the transfer? In addition, once you set up Preferred Rewards with BoA and link the accounts, that $200k is going to get you top tier status within months - which means a really sweet 75% boost to credit card rewards.

Let's look at the Cash Rewards card as an example:

Base:
3% category reward (your choice)
2% Grocery/Costco/Sams's
1% everywhere else

PR boosted:
5.25% category reward (I chose online shopping)
3.5% Grocery/Costco/Sams's
1.75% everywhere else
« Last Edit: January 27, 2023, 07:19:59 AM by TomTX »

dividendman

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Re: Do you spread your investments around or keep them all at one firm?
« Reply #19 on: January 27, 2023, 09:19:25 AM »
Yeah, I have:

Fidelity (HSA with no fees)
Citi (for a cheaper mortgage rate and their perks like free amazon prime, hulu, costco membership, wsj subscription etc.)
BofA/Merrill (for the > 2% back on everything perk on their credit card)
Wells fargo (for having branches everywhere and some perks for more assets like a free safety deposit box, money orders etc.)
Chase (for getting a bonus and moving up in their tier as well)
TreasuryDirect (for ibonds mostly)

It's a pain but they all give me something pretty useful so I keep 'em. None of the above is for "safety" in case a firm goes under, it's for the perks.

P.S. It's kind of crazy how you get more free stuff the more money you have.