Loading fees on mutual funds

[Chesleygirl]

If you already paid loading fees to purchase mutual funds for investing, would you stay the course, or switch to a better plan with fewer fees. I want to switch but I feel sick about the loading fees I've already paid on these investments, Class A shares, mutual funds.

[ender]

Are they in taxable accounts or retirement?

You may have taxes associated with selling them.

[Chesleygirl]

Also, take stock of the whole situation.  If you are working with a financial advisor at this investment company, first they already sold you mutual fund shares that paid them a fat commission, and further they have an incentive to sell you more products to collect more fees.   They may also churn money you already have invested in your account to generate even more fees for themselves.

Can they churn money in 529 plans? I didn't even know what a loading fee was and did not ask about it, when he sold me the plan. Now that I know and compare the fees to other plans, it's high. I've read that if you stay the course, eventually you could come out ahead regardless of the load fees you paid, after 3 years. That sometimes, load mutual funds can outperform some no-load mutual funds. But I don't know how common this occurs.

[Indexer]

Can they churn money in 529 plans? I didn't even know what a loading fee was and did not ask about it, when he sold me the plan. Now that I know and compare the fees to other plans, it's high. I've read that if you stay the course, eventually you could come out ahead regardless of the load fees you paid, after 3 years. That sometimes, load mutual funds can outperform some no-load mutual funds. But I don't know how common this occurs.

Churning in this regard = switching you from one loaded fund to another on a fairly regular basis so they can keep collecting the commission. It's uncommon in 529s, but it could happen. How often have they recommended changing the investment?

Stay the course = don't go changing your investment strategy all the time, for instance don't go to cash just because the market is having a bad year. Stay the course means if you are in stocks and your plan requires stocks then you should stay in stocks. Stay the course doesn't mean stay in a high cost fund when a lower cost fund is available.

"That sometimes, load mutual funds can outperform some no-load mutual funds. But I don't know how common this occurs. "

First let's define load VS no-load. Load = commission to the broker, could be on the front end(A shares), or built into the annual costs(C shares). A shares are normally 3-5% up front + 0.5%-1.5% annually. C shares are normally 0% up front + 1-3% annually. NOW, there are also no-load funds that cost 1-3% even though they don't have a load. These are just expensive funds. The reason advisors get away with saying, "if you stay the course, eventually you could come out ahead regardless of the load fees you paid, after 3 years," is because if you compare an A share to a C share or an expensive no-load fund the A share is normally cheaper over 3 years. This wouldn't be the case if you compared the A share to a lower cost fund. As a general rule loaded funds are more expensive than no-load funds but that isn't always the case. Also index funds tend to be cheaper than active funds, but there are exceptions.

Ignoring load VS no-load and ignoring index VS active, generally speaking lower cost funds outperform higher cost funds. If you get anything from this post get that, lower cost funds tend to outperform higher cost funds.

Conclusion: switch to some lower cost funds.

[smallstache]

At the first opportunity, move the money to California's Scholarshare program and choose a passively managed fund. You will come out ahead on day 1.

[Chesleygirl]

At the first opportunity, move the money to California's Scholarshare program and choose a passively managed fund. You will come out ahead on day 1.

Isn't this a Clark Howard favorite? I think it's at the top of their list, which is what I'm looking at. 

[JohnWC]

Churning has been illegal since the mid 70s and used to be more common than it is today. I wouldn't just assume that churning has or will occur just because of the presence of front loaded funds. You did already pay the fee so you'll have to weigh switching out vs staying committed.

Without any specifics (acct. balance, load/fee structure/investment objectives/time horizon) it's hard to know what's the best thing to do at this point.

[smallstache]

At the first opportunity, move the money to California's Scholarshare program and choose a passively managed fund. You will come out ahead on day 1.

Isn't this a Clark Howard favorite? I think it's at the top of their list, which is what I'm looking at.

idk, who is that?

[Chesleygirl]

http://clark.com/

Clark Howard.

[Chesleygirl]

Churning has been illegal since the mid 70s and used to be more common than it is today. I wouldn't just assume that churning has or will occur just because of the presence of front loaded funds. You did already pay the fee so you'll have to weigh switching out vs staying committed.

They have been churning my IRAs repeatedly.

Even though churning is illegal, it still goes on. They are allowed to make trades with in an account, apparently, but not "excessive" and that's the word that is difficult to legally define.

Edward Jones must be benefiting in some way from the trades they are doing in my IRAs.

[Psychstache]

This is a great example of the sunken cost fallacy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost

All that matters is the performance of the fund going forward will be like vs the performance of other possible investments.

iirc, in another thread you said these were accounts with Edward Jones. I would sprint, not walk, to the nearest phone, call a vanguard rep and get the paperwork to have them pull all your accounts from EJ over to them. EJ is awful and use shady, manipulative tactics to lure in the financially illiterate and rake them over the coals with fees.

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[smallstache]

http://clark.com/

Clark Howard.

Don't know him. There are too many wise guys out there. I don't want to even try to keep up.

[smallstache]

This is a great example of the sunken cost fallacy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost

All that matters is the performance of the fund going forward will be like vs the performance of other possible investments.

iirc, in another thread you said these were accounts with Edward Jones. I would sprint, not walk, to the nearest phone, call a vanguard rep and get the paperwork to have them pull all your accounts from EJ over to them. EJ is awful and use shady, manipulative tactics to lure in the financially illiterate and rake them over the coals with fees.

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Fuck EJ

[Chesleygirl]

This is a great example of the sunken cost fallacy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost

All that matters is the performance of the fund going forward will be like vs the performance of other possible investments.

iirc, in another thread you said these were accounts with Edward Jones. I would sprint, not walk, to the nearest phone, call a vanguard rep and get the paperwork to have them pull all your accounts from EJ over to them. EJ is awful and use shady, manipulative tactics to lure in the financially illiterate and rake them over the coals with fees.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

I have an appointment on Monday, to go over the mess with someone at a Fidelity office. We're going to try and figure out what it will cost to sell or move this junk in my IRA.  My biggest fear is that some might not be liquid enough to move out without incurring huge fees.

The EJ adviser insisted that the trades were done as a matter of routine by "them" (whoever "them" is); and he said I don't pay for them, as the costs are covered under the AUM fee. But I am seeing a transaction fees under "investment activity" under "amount" with a little minus sign in front of it.

[Psychstache]

This is a great example of the sunken cost fallacy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost

All that matters is the performance of the fund going forward will be like vs the performance of other possible investments.

iirc, in another thread you said these were accounts with Edward Jones. I would sprint, not walk, to the nearest phone, call a vanguard rep and get the paperwork to have them pull all your accounts from EJ over to them. EJ is awful and use shady, manipulative tactics to lure in the financially illiterate and rake them over the coals with fees.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

I have an appointment on Monday, to go over the mess with someone at a Fidelity office. We're going to try and figure out what it will cost to sell or move this junk in my IRA.  My biggest fear is that some might not be liquid enough to move out without incurring huge fees.

The EJ adviser insisted that the trades were done as a matter of routine by "them" (whoever "them" is); and he said I don't pay for them, as the costs are covered under the AUM fee. But I am seeing a transaction fees under "investment activity" under "amount" with a little minus sign in front of it.

The advisor is a sleazeball who speaks in half-truths and jargon to keep extorting you for money. There will be fees, because EJ will charge you for removing your account from them for one final FU, but it is worth the cost to never deal with them again for the rest of your lifetime.

Rip the band-Aid off and call it a lesson learned.

[Chesleygirl]

I'm prepared to pay their exit fees as the cost of getting rid of them and a lesson learned.

[Mighty-Dollar]

If you already paid loading fees to purchase mutual funds for investing, would you stay the course, or switch to a better plan with fewer fees. I want to switch but I feel sick about the loading fees I've already paid on these investments, Class A shares, mutual funds.

What is the expense ratio moving forward? Keep in mind that index funds, like S&P 500 index funds have expense ratios of about 0.03% - 0.05%. That's the benchmark.

The EJ adviser insisted that the trades were done as a matter of routine by "them" (whoever "them" is); and he said I don't pay for them, as the costs are covered under the AUM fee.

Stay away from EJ. They are liars, charlatans and thieves.  The cost is usually subtracted from your share price, so you never saw an itemization of the front end load fee. All part of the deception.

[Indexer]

Churning has been illegal since the mid 70s and used to be more common than it is today. I wouldn't just assume that churning has or will occur just because of the presence of front loaded funds. You did already pay the fee so you'll have to weigh switching out vs staying committed.

They have been churning my IRAs repeatedly.

Even though churning is illegal, it still goes on. They are allowed to make trades with in an account, apparently, but not "excessive" and that's the word that is difficult to legally define.

Edward Jones must be benefiting in some way from the trades they are doing in my IRAs.

Let's clarify the point about churning, because this doesn't sound like churning.

Commission based account: the advisor is normally not authorized to make trades without talking to you first. If we are talking about loaded funds then each trade can be very expensive, 3-5% on average for A shares. Churning in this type of account is bad, very bad, worthy of contacting FINRA bad. If they are using A share loaded funds then it wouldn't require much activity to constitute churning. If they completely sold one fund to go into a new loaded A share mutual fund, even as rarely as once per year, you have an argument for churning since C shares would have been more appropriate.

Managed account: in this type of account you are normally paying a flat % fee for them to manage the account, and you don't pay a commission on each trade. Now you might have transaction fees($5-10 at most firms) but those are normally much smaller than commissions(3-5% of the value). Since you aren't paying a commission on each trade churning is MUCH less an of issue, at least legally. Lots of trading is normally bad for performance, but that isn't a legal matter.

The EJ adviser insisted that the trades were done as a matter of routine by "them" (whoever "them" is); and he said I don't pay for them, as the costs are covered under the AUM fee. But I am seeing a transaction fees under "investment activity" under "amount" with a little minus sign in front of it.

This is a managed account, not a commission based account. This is highly unlikely to be churning. You are paying an AUM fee instead of commissions. Now sometimes you still have transaction fees(significantly smaller than commissions) in addition to the AUM fee, sometimes the firm will show the transaction fees and then discount them against the AUM fee(refund them), and sometimes the AUM fee will show up as a transaction fee.


Side note: walking into a Fidelity branch might not be the solution to the problem...  Yes Fidelity has index funds that cost about the same as Vanguard index funds. The guy in the branch is paid commissions, just like that EJ advisor, so you might be walking from the lion's den into the shark tank. Fidelity is an improvement over EJ, but if you aren't careful you might be sold similar expensive investments.

[Chesleygirl]

Managed account: in this type of account you are normally paying a flat % fee for them to manage the account, and you don't pay a commission on each trade. Now you might have transaction fees($5-10 at most firms) but those are normally much smaller than commissions(3-5% of the value). Since you aren't paying a commission on each trade churning is MUCH less an of issue, at least legally. Lots of trading is normally bad for performance, but that isn't a legal matter.

If lots of trading is bad for performance, then I do feel it's being mismanaged; although of course, there is no legal issue here if it's not really churning.  But still the account may not do well if they keep doing these trades. They'll buy something one week and sell it the next. It's very actively traded. Transaction fees, although small, I would rather not pay.

I had a Fidelity account years ago and the person I contacted did not try to sell me anything; in fact, he just wanted me to set it up online but I insisted on walking into their office. He refused to even  make suggestions saying he wasn't allowed to give advice . Do they really work on commission? Fidelity doesn't seem slimy like EJ. Just my perception.

[Chesleygirl]

What is the expense ratio moving forward? Keep in mind that index funds, like S&P 500 index funds have expense ratios of about 0.03% - 0.05%. That's the benchmark.

In the 529 plans, I'm not sure what the expense ratios are, I'll take a look. The loading fees are around 5.75%. So every time I put money in, they take some right off the top, before it gets invested.

I've already mailed off the paperwork to Utah to transfer to their (direct sold) 529 plan. Haven't told my adviser yet so it may come as a surprise to him when he finds out. But the Utah plan is much better, no loads, some of the lowest fees in the USA.

[Frankies Girl]

Fidelity agents and reps (in person or over the phone) are paid salaries. They do not get commissions for anything. They likely do get bonuses based off of their customer satisfaction surveys and retention of assigned customers, and any complaints about a rep are taken deadly serious. And there is never any problem for you to ask to be assigned someone else due to a personality conflict or just because you didn't like how they talked to you. Don't consider them a friend; it is a professional relationship with you being the one in control.

Fido reps are not supposed to push you into things. If you ever feel uncomfortable with a recommendation, tell the rep that. They should back the hell off fast, because they'll get in trouble for upsetting a client this way.

At the most, they may recommend their professional management group - Strategic Advisors*, (which does charge a management fee and also will place you in 20+ different funds in an assortment of low/high expense ratios). It is not the worst move ever, but definitely not worth it unless you are insanely busy enough to not care about your money, or mentally unable to grasp basic investing on your own.

They won't push you hard in this direction if you make sure to state you want to learn how to do it yourself. But again, if you get a rare pushy person at Fidelity, tell them you need some time to think about it, and leave/hang up and then make sure to ask for someone else in the future.

The big thing for me is reframing what a rep is actually there for.

My advice is that you should never be asking any rep anywhere for their advice about what funds to choose. You need to figure that out on your own, either by reading and researching yourself, or by asking questions of not-in-it-for-your-money outsiders (like the folks here or on Bogleheads) that can give you specific funds to look at that should fit your asset allocation once you decide what that should be.

You only want to have a rep around to ask HOW to do the things you want to do. Like "how do I sell off this crummy X fund to buy decent Z fund in my Roth IRA and minimize the losses?" or "I need to get $2,500 over to my traditional IRA from my taxable account. Can you walk me through how to do that online?" or even "I need to make sure 15% federal taxes are withheld out of my IRA distribution. Can you help me set that up so it happens automatically?"



*caveat: my dad was with SA for years due to not understanding basic investing, and then becoming too sick to care. When I inherited, I left it with SA for about 6 months while I learned how to invest - I knew nothing. Once I felt good enough about index investing to DIY, I shifted everything out of SA and into regular Fido accounts. My rep was helpful and perfectly nice the whole way through and never gave me any crap whatsoever about wanting to manage my own accounts - he even told me that index investing was a very smart move.

[Chesleygirl]

*caveat: my dad was with SA for years due to not understanding basic investing, and then becoming too sick to care. When I inherited, I left it with SA for about 6 months while I learned how to invest - I knew nothing. Once I felt good enough about index investing to DIY, I shifted everything out of SA and into regular Fido accounts. My rep was helpful and perfectly nice the whole way through and never gave me any crap whatsoever about wanting to manage my own accounts - he even told me that index investing was a very smart move.

SA meaning Strategic Advisors, with Fidelity. They wouldn't be considered brokers, would they? I have a friend who works for Fidelity, she handles multi-million dollar accounts.  When I asked her about her advice on whether I should invest with Edward Jones, she just said "they're a broker" and left it at that. Perhaps she knows nothing about them, but I find it strange she's been in the financial business for so long and couldn't give me an opinion about different brokerages.

I've already decided what Fidelity funds that I want, but I want the fidelity rep to tell me what it's going to cost me to move various holdings out of Edward Jones. If he can give that information out.

[Frankies Girl]

*caveat: my dad was with SA for years due to not understanding basic investing, and then becoming too sick to care. When I inherited, I left it with SA for about 6 months while I learned how to invest - I knew nothing. Once I felt good enough about index investing to DIY, I shifted everything out of SA and into regular Fido accounts. My rep was helpful and perfectly nice the whole way through and never gave me any crap whatsoever about wanting to manage my own accounts - he even told me that index investing was a very smart move.

SA meaning Strategic Advisors, with Fidelity. They wouldn't be considered brokers, would they? I have a friend who works for Fidelity, she handles multi-million dollar accounts.  When I asked her about her advice on whether I should invest with Edward Jones, she just said "they're a broker" and left it at that. Perhaps she knows nothing about them, but I find it strange she's been in the financial business for so long and couldn't give me an opinion about different brokerages.

Strategic Advisors is the group that is in charge when you choose any professionally managed account. They are officially labeled as Fidelity's broker/dealer unit, which oversees the managed accounts.

I had to take a very long assessment with lots of questions regarding long term goals, wants and needs to assess how to invest my money, and they created a fancy printed report showing what they were going to put me into and all the reasons with expensive cover weight paper, full color printing and charts and graphs and lots and lots of information. Again, this is just after my dad died, and I barely understood what a retirement account was, so I just went along with it until I got up to speed myself. I made money, but this was also 2013, when everybody and their dog should have made money... so it's unknown at this point how well I could have done if I'd known what I was doing... (and I prefer not to know anyway since there's not a damned thing I can do about it now!)

Weird you friend didn't make a case for going with Fido if she also worked there, but what she didn't say is likely just as revealing - just flatly confirming that EJ was an existing brokerage place and nothing else good or bad? Hmmmmm.

[Chesleygirl]

Weird you friend didn't make a case for going with Fido if she also worked there, but what she didn't say is likely just as revealing - just flatly confirming that EJ was an existing brokerage place and nothing else good or bad? Hmmmmm.

Yes. And we're good enough friends that she could have confidentially warned me about investing with certain brokers, but perhaps she knew nothing about them. Perhaps because of her job with Fidelity she isn't allowed to talk about competitor firms? I don't know. If she had warned me, I would have listened. But she takes her job at Fidelity pretty seriously and I know they have high standards for the people who work there. So she might not have been allowed to say anything about a competitor.

I bet Strategic Advisors only manages money for people with accounts over a certain amount. My portfolio would be too small for them, I'm still under 100K.

[Mighty-Dollar]

The loading fees are around 5.75%.

Haven't told my adviser yet so it may come as a surprise to him when he finds out.

5.75% is outrageous when index funds have ZERO front end loads. And I'm certain that this mutual fund(s) has ongoing expense ratio fees that are much higher than index funds.
Again don't mix your money with friendship. Just pack up and go.

[Indexer]

Managed account: in this type of account you are normally paying a flat % fee for them to manage the account, and you don't pay a commission on each trade. Now you might have transaction fees($5-10 at most firms) but those are normally much smaller than commissions(3-5% of the value). Since you aren't paying a commission on each trade churning is MUCH less an of issue, at least legally. Lots of trading is normally bad for performance, but that isn't a legal matter.

If lots of trading is bad for performance, then I do feel it's being mismanaged; although of course, there is no legal issue here if it's not really churning.  But still the account may not do well if they keep doing these trades. They'll buy something one week and sell it the next. It's very actively traded. Transaction fees, although small, I would rather not pay.

I had a Fidelity account years ago and the person I contacted did not try to sell me anything; in fact, he just wanted me to set it up online but I insisted on walking into their office. He refused to even  make suggestions saying he wasn't allowed to give advice . Do they really work on commission? Fidelity doesn't seem slimy like EJ. Just my perception.

Yes, you should leave EJ, no questions there. I was just trying to figure out if you should reach out to a regulator or not, looks like there is no reason to.

EJ Advisors are close to 100% commissions/AUM fees. A lot of your branch staff at banks and investment firms, with tellers being the normal exception, are paid salaries + commissions/sales bonuses. They will still have a paycheck either way, but they normally still have sales goals and get paid for achieving those goals. I also said what I said because while Fidelity has some low cost index funds they also have funds with ERs that are much higher, AND they sell loaded A share mutual funds. They also got sued a few years back for loading up the 401k for their own employees with expensive proprietary funds. I've also heard from people who use to work there that they felt pushed to meet sales goals. They are better than EJ, but they aren't saints.

I checked Glassdoor, and yes, the consultants at the branches are paid a salary & commissions. The phone reps at the 1-800 might just be salary.

The reason he wouldn't give advice was likely based on licensing. To take trades in individual stocks & mutual funds you need a Series 7 and Series 63. Someone with these licenses can give general guidance to help you make a decision but they can't tell you what to do. To give advice they need a Series 65 or 66(what the guy at EJ has), and then they normally aren't going to give any advice until you have accepted consent agreements and had a conversation about goals/time horizon/etc.

[Chesleygirl]

The loading fees are around 5.75%.

Haven't told my adviser yet so it may come as a surprise to him when he finds out.

5.75% is outrageous when index funds have ZERO front end loads. And I'm certain that this mutual fund(s) has ongoing expense ratio fees that are much higher than index funds.
Again don't mix your money with friendship. Just pack up and go.

Yes, it's pretty outrageous. I get the balance of an inheritance next year, I had planned to take it all to EJ, now I realize they would have made mincemeat out of it and used it to fatten their wallets. They see the client's money as their own money to do whatever they want with.

Also, no more loaded funds, with anyone.

I was very impressed with Fidelity's customer service, as I just talked to them this morning. They didn't try to talk me into anything, just helped me set up the account to transfer my IRAs.

I have one fund in EJ and I need to ask what it will cost to liquidate it, as it won't transfer over to Fidelity. Then I'll be ready to go.

[Chesleygirl]

I just completed my transfer to Fidelity, online. Now my phone is ringing off the hook and I can see on caller ID that it's my Edward Jones adviser.  Did he find out that fast? Wow.

[Another Reader]

Don't answer!  And don't answer the door, either!  He will be by to convince you that you made a terrible mistake!

[Chesleygirl]

Don't answer!  And don't answer the door, either!  He will be by to convince you that you made a terrible mistake!

He often drops by my house to chat, but more often, he comes by wanting to know why my husband won't invest with him. He's asked for my husband's cell number, I won't give it to him. He's also asked for contact info of other family members. This feels very MLM to me, like how multi-level marketers network to find more business; which in my opinion, doesn't look professional for a financial services firm. I mean, we don't see Fidelity or Vanguard out knocking doors or trying to network to get customers. They don't have to.

[PizzaSteve]

Did you ask Fidelity for a new account bonus? Right now i only see free trades, but likely they will match other broker offers if you ask. Often they offer ff miles too.

This site has current
[url][http://www.hustlermoneyblog.com/best-brokerage-bonuses//url]

[Chesleygirl]

Did you ask Fidelity for a new account bonus? Right now i only see free trades, but likely they will match other broker offers if you ask. Often they offer ff miles too.

This site has current
[url][http://www.hustlermoneyblog.com/best-brokerage-bonuses//url]

I'll look at that, thanks.