Schwab doesn't support automated, recurring sales of SWVXX?!

[Sojourner]

Just got off the phone with Schwab, and I have to say I'm pretty flabbergasted. Turns out they don't offer a way to automatically sell a set amount of their premium money market fund (SWVXX) on a recurring, monthly basis. This seems like a very basic function that any full-featured brokerage would offer. How does Schwab think their older/retired customers should go about setting up a monthly, automated income stream to fund their spending?

If this is actually not possible, and you have to manually log into your Schwab account and click through the "sell" procedure every month like a robot, then I'll be transferring all my funds out of Schwab to a more user-friendly brokerage . It's almost beyond belief that something this basic is not possible at Schwab.

Has anyone else found this to be a major annoyance, or is it just me?

 

[OldShooter]

I don't need such a feature, but I remember someone mentioning here a mutual fund that will do regular, fixed, distributions from interest and divs first, then principal if necessary. Maybe someone remembers more than I do.

 

[Car-Guy]

Just got off the phone with Schwab, and I have to say I'm pretty flabbergasted. Turns out they don't offer a way to automatically sell a set amount of their premium money market fund (SWVXX) on a recurring, monthly basis. This seems like a very basic function that any full-featured brokerage would offer. How does Schwab think their older/retired customers should go about setting up a monthly, automated income stream to fund their spending?

If this is actually not possible, and you have to manually log into your Schwab account and click through the "sell" procedure every month like a robot, then I'll be transferring all my funds out of Schwab to a more user-friendly brokerage . It's almost beyond belief that something this basic is not possible at Schwab.

Has anyone else found this to be a major annoyance, or is it just me?

I move money in/out of SWVXX about every week or so, usually rounding to the nearest 5k...Not much money gained or lost each month doing that and easy to do since I log on to my account at least a couple of times a week anyway. Easy for me, but YMMV

 

[11522914]

I move money in/out of SWVXX about every week or so, usually rounding to the nearest 5k...Not much money gained or lost each month doing that and easy to do since I log on to my account at least a couple of times a week anyway. Easy for me, but YMMV

+1

I check my portfolio every day. I'm retired and enjoy doing it. So no issues for me but I do understand your concern. It just doesn't really affect me.

 

[Sojourner]

I move money in/out of SWVXX about every week or so, usually rounding to the nearest 5k...Not much money gained or lost each month doing that and easy to do since I log on to my account at least a couple of times a week anyway. Easy for me, but YMMV

I mean, sure, it's not hard to do this kind of thing manually... but it shouldn't be necessary! Why force customers to run the risk of forgetting to do it, resulting in overdrafts or "insufficient funds" problems? Fidelity allows their users to easily setup recurring, monthly transfers that automatically sell from mutual funds of your choice. I just can't believe Schwab would deliberately exclude this kind of very user-friendly feature from their interface, especially when competing brokerages offer it.

I'm going to call back and see if I can talk to someone higher in the customer service hierarchy about this at some point. Maybe there is some workaround or hack I'm not aware of that might make this less painful to deal with.

 

[Involuntary Retiree]

Just got off the phone with Schwab, and I have to say I'm pretty flabbergasted. Turns out they don't offer a way to automatically sell a set amount of their premium money market fund (SWVXX) on a recurring, monthly basis. This seems like a very basic function that any full-featured brokerage would offer. How does Schwab think their older/retired customers should go about setting up a monthly, automated income stream to fund their spending?

If this is actually not possible, and you have to manually log into your Schwab account and click through the "sell" procedure every month like a robot, then I'll be transferring all my funds out of Schwab to a more user-friendly brokerage . It's almost beyond belief that something this basic is not possible at Schwab.

Has anyone else found this to be a major annoyance, or is it just me?

What brokers actually offer this functionality? I haven't explored the options because we're not yet withdrawing from our investment portfolio.
Thanks.

 

[Car-Guy]

I mean, sure, it's not hard to do this kind of thing manually... but it shouldn't be necessary! Why force customers to run the risk of forgetting to do it, resulting in overdrafts or "insufficient funds" problems? Fidelity allows their users to easily setup recurring, monthly transfers that automatically sell from mutual funds of your choice. I just can't believe Schwab would deliberately exclude this kind of very user-friendly feature from their interface, especially when competing brokerages offer it.

I'm going to call back and see if I can talk to someone higher in the customer service hierarchy about this at some point. Maybe there is some workaround or hack I'm not aware of that might make this less painful to deal with.

Agree, it would be nice if it could be automated. (Like a daily sweep fund) Let's us know what you find.

 

[Whisper66]

What brokers actually offer this functionality? I haven't explored the options because we're not yet withdrawing from our investment portfolio.
Thanks.

I don't use it, but it looks like Vanguard provides an automatic withdrawal plan. "Automatic Withdrawal Plan (AWP). Withdraw funds on a regular basis. Redeem shares from your Vanguard fund account and have the proceeds transferred to your bank account on a regular basis. This service is ideal for IRA shareholders who are age 59½ or older and want to draw income from their IRAs"


See link.....
https://personal.vanguard.com/us/co...tLMAcctOptionsContent.jsp?cbdForceDomain=true

 

[OldShooter]

... I just can't believe Schwab would deliberately exclude this kind of very user-friendly feature from their interface, especially when competing brokerages offer it. ...

I'm sure there are a couple of things going on here:

1) There is a continuous feature race going on among the brokerages. Everyone has more or less the same master feature list with some features checked off and implemented and others on the to-do list and prioritized. Some of the to-do list are things that the competition already has and some are things that they hope will beat the competition.

2) Schwab appears to be doing a careful and patient job of onboarding the TDAmeritrade people, the FAs and the retail customers. This involves a lot of software work and, probably, a freeze or slowdown of new features work. Hence the to-do list progress is likely to be slowed or temporarily stopped.

So, my guess is that your desired feature is on the to-do list and simply waiting its turn. For whatever reason, its priority is such that it has not yet been implemented and released. Patience, young grasshopper, patience.

 

[Sojourner]

I'm sure there are a couple of things going on here:

1) There is a continuous feature race going on among the brokerages. Everyone has more or less the same master feature list with some features checked off and implemented and others on the to-do list and prioritized. Some of the to-do list are things that the competition already has and some are things that they hope will beat the competition.

2) Schwab appears to be doing a careful and patient job of onboarding the TDAmeritrade people, the FAs and the retail customers. This involves a lot of software work and, probably, a freeze or slowdown of new features work. Hence the to-do list progress is likely to be slowed or temporarily stopped.

So, my guess is that your desired feature is on the to-do list and simply waiting its turn. For whatever reason, its priority is such that it has not yet been implemented and released.

Agreed, probably all true. The TDAmeritrade integration probably slowed Schwab's new feature development to a crawl over the past year or so.

 

[Sojourner]

What brokers actually offer this functionality? I haven't explored the options because we're not yet withdrawing from our investment portfolio.
Thanks.

Both Fidelity and Vanguard offer automated, recurring sales/transfers/withdrawals of this kind, AFAIK.

 

[sengsational]

Do they offer an account where you could set up a regular transfer to your bank? Maybe that account with the regular transfer could be overdraft protected by the SWVXX account. So they'd sell enough SWVXX for the size of the transfer you specify.

 

[Sojourner]

Do they offer an account where you could set up a regular transfer to your bank? Maybe that account with the regular transfer could be overdraft protected by the SWVXX account. So they'd sell enough SWVXX for the size of the transfer you specify.

I don't think so. I poked around extensively in their UI and could find nothing that allowed for automated transfers of any kind. Reddit appears to confirm this, and it's a common complaint about Schwab from what I see there.

 

[Texas Proud]

I am gong to throw in a question I am interested in now.


I saw that Schwab has an income screen that estimates how much income you will receive for the next year. It is broken down by month so IMO a good thing.


However, this brought up something that I think I had at some brokerage that would show expected dividends/interest for your holdings on a calendar... IOW, you will receive X on say Sept 15th... Schwab does not have this and my advisor said so.. said I can add ex divi date and divi amount to portfolio page and calculate... well, I am lazy and want THEM to do it as it is kinda easy... just put the info down when a divi is declared...


Anybody know if some other broker does this? I was checking VG and did not see it there either...

 

[Car-Guy]

So I've been a Schwab customer for over 40 years now (I forget exactly how long) And yes, I have had a few issues over the years but not many and they are usually resolved quickly. A year or so ago, their website had some serious performance/availability problems and I know that cost me some $... I complained to my AE. We agreed on what I "may have lost" and they credited my account for that amount. In addition, years before that incident, I was given fee free trading before it became the industry standard. Personally I like their web interface/options/capabilities. Sure I'd like the sweep function too but all things considered, not too bad for free. Oh, and they have the best customer services/help desk that I've ever used with any company. (And no, I don't work for Schwab)

 

[MarieIG]

Just got off the phone with Schwab, and I have to say I'm pretty flabbergasted. Turns out they don't offer a way to automatically sell a set amount of their premium money market fund (SWVXX) on a recurring, monthly basis. This seems like a very basic function that any full-featured brokerage would offer. How does Schwab think their older/retired customers should go about setting up a monthly, automated income stream to fund their spending?

If this is actually not possible, and you have to manually log into your Schwab account and click through the "sell" procedure every month like a robot, then I'll be transferring all my funds out of Schwab to a more user-friendly brokerage . It's almost beyond belief that something this basic is not possible at Schwab.

Has anyone else found this to be a major annoyance, or is it just me?

Yep. I called about this a while back. I wanted to set up deposits coming out of a money market account. I had to set up an automated withdrawal/ deposit straight from my sweep account. If I want to transfer from a MM, I have to put in a sell order. I don't think this is a technical issue, I think this is a business decision in that Schwab is trying to keep as much money possible in their low paying sweep account.

 

[bada bing]

Yep. I called about this a while back. I wanted to set up deposits coming out of a money market account. I had to set up an automated withdrawal/ deposit straight from my sweep account. If I want to transfer from a MM, I have to put in a sell order. I don't think this is a technical issue, I think this is a business decision in that Schwab is trying to keep as much money possible in their low paying sweep account.

Yes. This ^^
In the race to zero trading fees a few years ago, Schwab made a business decision to hitch their profits to interest arbitrage of their account holder's cash. That was how they were the first to "zero" fees. Whether that was the best business decision is debatable. It does make it so with a little effort you can "opt out" of being a profitable customer by manually sweeping cash. And thus, the business difficulties Schwab finds themselves in now with higher market interest rates driving interest seeking behavior in their account holders. They can't have a sweep account that pays market rates because that is what keeps the doors open and the lights on. I suspect that being locked into their low interest sweep accounts is a hurdle to implementing recurring automated MF withdrawals. You can set up recurring automated withdrawals from "cash" now, but "cash" at Schwab doesn't include competitive market interest accounts. Those you have to do manually.

I'm a 35 year Schwab customer. I think I understand the mechanisms that make them do what they do and I accept it. I'm not near to moving because of this issue, YMMV. I use brokered CDs and T-Bills rather than MM funds for my "cash" at Schwab. If/when I want to set up scheduled cash transfers, it's easy to buy the maturity dates on CD/Bill to make cash available to meet scheduled transfers. A little cludgey, but it works.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

I tried to figure out how to sell shares of SWVXX at a future date and was disappointed I couldn’t. Now I put a reminder on my calendar to help me remember to do it several days or a week before bill season at the first of every month. Not a deal killer but a bit of an annoyance.

 

[5Miler]

I used the monthly transfer service from my Vanguard IRA MM to my bank checking account to establish a monthly paycheck and had absolutely no issues during that time. I only discontinued the transfers when I decided to start Social Security. I wasn't aware that Schwab did not offer that service. Glad I consolidated all of my IRA accounts at Vanguard prior to retirement.

While it probably wouldn't be an issue for most to just do a monthly sell order to put money in the Schwab Sweep account to finance the automatic transfer, I don't usually log into my accounts that often as I use Quicken for tracking. I also don't like to do any online finance work during my annual dive trips as the resort we stay at has an open internet without so much as a password. Automatic works best for me.

If I recall correctly, at Vanguard I was able to chose which security to sell to fund my transfers so I elected to use my MM. That way I could sell any security I deemed appropriate and have the proceeds moved into the MM. Helped with rebalancing as well although I never got carried away in that regard. I usually just did sales just once or twice a year.

 

[jazz4cash]

I am gong to throw in a question I am interested in now.


I saw that Schwab has an income screen that estimates how much income you will receive for the next year. It is broken down by month so IMO a good thing.


However, this brought up something that I think I had at some brokerage that would show expected dividends/interest for your holdings on a calendar... IOW, you will receive X on say Sept 15th... Schwab does not have this and my advisor said so.. said I can add ex divi date and divi amount to portfolio page and calculate... well, I am lazy and want THEM to do it as it is kinda easy... just put the info down when a divi is declared...


Anybody know if some other broker does this? I was checking VG and did not see it there either...

Fidelity monthly statements show divi income by security for each month of the year.

 

[COcheesehead]

What brokers actually offer this functionality? I haven't explored the options because we're not yet withdrawing from our investment portfolio.
Thanks.

Fidelity.
I have all my cash in a premium money market at Fidelity. I use billpay and the funds come right out of the MM. Or if I buy an investment, same thing. We also transfer some funds every month to my wife’s checking. It’s all automatic and no sell is required. I never have to sell the MM. If the core account is $0, and it almost always is for us, it defaults to the money market. If I want to put money in the MM, I have to do a buy.
I kinda thought all brokerages do that.

 

[Texas Proud]

Fidelity monthly statements show divi income by security for each month of the year.

I see estimated annual income by security but no by month... the cash flow stmt shows estimated income by security type but not by security...


I might be missing something or you get a better stmt than I do...

 

[I Yam What I Yam]

However, this brought up something that I think I had at some brokerage that would show expected dividends/interest for your holdings on a calendar... IOW, you will receive X on say Sept 15th....

Don't know if this will be helpful or not. Go to the Investment Income page that shows the monthly income. On the right hand side of the table is a few options, one of which is export as a .csv file. If you choose that you can download data for 2022, 2023 and for the next 12 months. It has the date, which account, security description, amount, type, symbol, and weather is received or estimated.

Not a calendar, but gives you the information.

 

[bmcgonig]

Fidelity.
I have all my cash in a premium money market at Fidelity. I use billpay and the funds come right out of the MM. Or if I buy an investment, same thing. We also transfer some funds every month to my wife’s checking. It’s all automatic and no sell is required. I never have to sell the MM. If the core account is $0, and it almost always is for us, it defaults to the money market. If I want to put money in the MM, I have to do a buy.
I kinda thought all brokerages do that.

Exact reason I’m thinking of transferring from Schwab. Yes, it can all be done manually but when I’m older I don’t want to be doing this manually. I want to automate as much as possible.

 

[Involuntary Retiree]

Exact reason I’m thinking of transferring from Schwab. Yes, it can all be done manually but when I’m older I don’t want to be doing this manually. I want to automate as much as possible.

I agree with this and will look at changing as I age. But SWVXX has a current yield in excess of 5.2%, so there's that.