Purchasing Bonds-stocks-funds

[bobbee25]

Where is the best place to have an IRA and be able to purchase individual bonds, stocks and mutual funds ? Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard ?
I want to start with bonds but have the other options.

[haha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobbee25 Where is the best place to have an IRA and be able to purchase individual bonds, stocks and mutual funds ? Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard ? I want to start with bonds but have the other options.

If you want to buy individual bonds, Fidelity is quite good at least relative to most of the discount competition. The others you mention may be good also, I don't know.

Ha

[FinanceDude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by haha If you want to buy individual bonds, Fidelity is quite good at least relative to most of the discount competition. The others you mention may be good also, I don't know. Ha

Probably Schwab 1st, Fido second......

[LOL!]

If you wish to purchase Vanguard mutual funds, then Fidelity and Schwab are going to be expensive places to do that. You could purchase the Vanguard ETFs though.

If you are going to purchase stocks and non-Vanguard mutual funds, then Vanguard is going to be an expensive place to do that.

I can recommend WellsFargo if you can use their PMA setup with 100 free trades per account per year. You can buy/sell stocks, ETFs, mutual funds (even Vanguard funds) without paying any commissions. I have not purchased any bonds through them, but I know that you can. I certainly buy Vanguard bond funds for no commission in my WellsFargo accounts.

Anyways, there may be no best single place to do what you want to do.

[brewer12345]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FinanceDude Probably Schwab 1st, Fido second......

Haven't tried to buy bonds through Fido, but based on recent experience I can say that Schwab is pretty good as long as what you want to buy is investment grade. Wanna buy junk? Good freakin' luck.

[tsturbo]

I have been very pleased with Vanguard, as I prefer index funds for the majority of my portfolio, you cannot beat their very low expense ratios on managed and index funds. I had Schwab previously and left them due to higher expense ratios.