If you are looking to invest in passively managed Mutual Funds, look no further than Vanguard. Vanguard offers a wide range of funds with very low overheads. Thanks to Vanguard, more and more fund companies are offering low cost mutual funds. Before Vanguard, funds with 0.18 expense ratios were unheard of. I recently opened an [...]
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Alliant recently joined the mobile banking fray with the introduction of its Alliant Mobile Banking iPhone app. This is a quick review of this application. This review is for version 1.31 of this app. The app requires iOS 3.2 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad. The app itself is [...]
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I recently signed up for WellsTrade with PMA checking. If you have more than 25K, I think the deal Wells Trade offers is hard to beat. Here’s a short list of things I like: Instant money transfers When I was Fidelity, before I could make a trade, I have to initiate a money transfer, wait [...]
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I recently consolidated all my assets from various brokers to WellsTrade. I actually had 5 different brokers! Since trading in ETFs is a part of my investing strategy, I needed to pay close attention to trading costs. Each $7 I pay in trading commission could potentially mean $24 in 15 years! After researching various brokers, [...]
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IngDirect provides a free iPhone App to manage accounts. I thought I’ll give it a spin. Went to the App store, sure enough IngDirect provides not one, but two applications, one to manage accounts and an ATM finder for those who have an IngDirect ATM card. Incoming search terms:iphone ing direct appsing direct app reviewaccount [...]
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This is a continuation of my earlier post on the account opening process at OptionsHouse. Once I mailed in the application it took 5 business days for the account activation email to arrive This gives you access to a virtual trading account with $5000 virtual money. Might be useful if this is your first trading [...]
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Fidelity’s iPhone app is a nifty little finance application. Among various free, market tracking apps, I found Fidelity’s to be the best. It’s elegance is in its simplicity. Trading features are members only of course, but anyone can check out the rest of the tools. CNBC’s app was too cluttered for my taste. Morningstar’s app [...]
Continue reading →This is more of a rant… Every time I do a fund transfer to Fidelity, I have to wait for 5 business days before I can begin trading, which amounts to 7 calendar days. A full week. My only basis for comparison is Scottrade. With Scottrade, the ACH transfer is almost instantaneous. No 5 day [...]
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OptionsHouse is yet another discount broker offering low trade commissions. Even though I like my current broker Scottrade, the commissions were killing me. I decided to check out OptionsHouse. Here’s a quick review. Objectives I’m not a day trader and I could care less about research tools. Most of the information I need I can [...]
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In my previous post I went through the process of deciding on a Roth IRA broker. I chose Fidelity. In this post, I’ll describe how my account opening experience with Fidelity was. I’ve put up a nice slideshow of the process, so you’ll get a picture of what’s involved. Browser I used Google’s Chrome browser [...]
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