Roth IRA - where to invest

[tcu2003]

I need to move my Roth IRA, and start one for DH.  How did you pick which company you put your Roth with?  Any recommendations?  Mine is currently with Wells Fargo, but I'm not happy with the high annual fee, so I'm looking to move elsewhere.  And DH doesn't have one, so theoretically, I'd like to rectify that this year.

Both of our current 401ks are with Prudential, I have an old 401k with Vanguard, and I do have a Sharebuilder account.  At this point, I'm probably leaning towards Vanguard, but only because I already have an account there, so I'm not sure if that's a good enough reason or not.  Any suggestions for places to do some research on this? 

[Bonny]

I'd probably move everything to Vanguard.

Good company, low fees and simplify your life!

My rollover IRA is with them and I'm likely to convert another account to them in the near future.

[whoisjohngalt]

Mar 31, 2014 22:05:32 GMT -5 Bonny said:

I'd probably move everything to Vanguard.

Good company, low fees and simplify your life!

My rollover IRA is with them and I'm likely to convert another account to them in the near future.

Any particular funds you would recommend?

[Deleted]

Another vote to move everything to Vanguard.  Lowest fees out there and great service.  I like Fidelity too and have been with both for nearly 20 years, but if I was to choose one it would be Vanguard. 

[tcu2003]

Well, I'm stuck with Prudential for our 401ks until we retire (which is still 30-ish years away) or change jobs, but good to hear that having everything else at Vanguard wouldn't be a bad move. 

[Deleted]

My 401K is with Prudential as well. I chose the lowest fee fund there (an S&P 500 index fund) and invest all my 401K money there.  I diversify with my IRA where I have better (cheaper) choices. 

[Bonny]

Mar 31, 2014 22:09:41 GMT -5 whoisjohngalt said:

Mar 31, 2014 22:05:32 GMT -5 Bonny said:

I'd probably move everything to Vanguard.

Good company, low fees and simplify your life!

My rollover IRA is with them and I'm likely to convert another account to them in the near future.

Any particular funds you would recommend?

Well I'm an OF (old fart) and want to simplify things. We have a lot of individual stocks and about 1/3 of that account in bond mutual funds in our taxable account.

My plan is to eventually convert all of my retirement accounts over to the S&P 500 because they are mostly blue-chip dividend paying stocks which get plenty of international exposure. Think of a company like Coca-Cola.

For more complete advice you might want to pop over to the Investing Basics and Beyond board. You can read about investing in the "Recommended Reading" Thread and take a look at the "Long Term Investor" thread and his "Model Portfolio" I think what he's invested in was repeated on page 103. And for fun look at his mom's story on p 108. She started investing in the 50s with just $50/mth and now has over $4.5M. That's a success story!

@wxyz is a nice guy and welcomes questions!

[whoisjohngalt]

Thank you!!

[yogiii]

Another shout out to vanguard from me.  We've got our ROTHs and taxable account there.  Our 401ks are with Fidelity, they're almost as good but I like the Vanguard website and funds better.

[goldensam]

Another vote for Vanguard. My Roth, rollover, and taxable accounts are all there.

[Deleted]

Vanguard. 

Our Roths are in Targeted Retirement Funds. I know not everyone likes them. But other things are in other places, so in the scope of the big pictures... 

[Gardening Grandma]

Ours are at Vanguard.  Moved them in 2011 (on the advice of this board). One of the smartest moves we've made.

A Target retirement fund is fine.  I have our traditional IRA in a mix of Life Strategy Moderate Growth and Wellesley.  My Roth is in Wellington.  If I were still working, I'd probably use LifecStrategy Aggressive Growth or a Target Retirement fund.

[Deleted]

You are no going to make any money with boring old Vanguard funds.

Buy commodities. They are real. They are valuable. Start with pork bellies and orange juice. Move up to corn and soy beans when you feel comfortable.

That is where the real money is made.

[Deleted]

I highly recommend this book. 

www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore-ebook/dp/B008CIS5E0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396362849&sr=8-1&keywords=boggleheads+guide+to+investing

You can have a well diversified, low-fee portfolio at Vanguard with very few funds. 

[Ombud]

Doing the core - explore philosophy with my assets. ROTH & IRA are core: SPY, SCHD, SCHA, SCHF. I'm with Schwab bc I don't pay fees ex $8 to buy / sell

[Plain Old Petunia]

Apr 1, 2014 7:41:42 GMT -5 oped said:

Vanguard. 

Our Roths are in Targeted Retirement Funds. I know not everyone likes them. But other things are in other places, so in the scope of the big pictures... 

 There is no reason to "not like" VG's TR funds.  They are excellent.      Hard to do much better, and easy to do much worse.

[Plain Old Petunia]

Just so you know TCU, I have my traditional IRA at Wells Fargo and I pay nothing.   It's a brokerage account, and I buy and hold total market ETFs.  No annual fees, no commissions, no fees of any kind.  Because of the balance in my brokerage account, I get the PMA checking account, normally $30 per month, free of charge.   It works well for me.

[phil5185]

Another vote for Vanguard. My Roth, rollover, and taxable accounts are all there.

Us too.  We keep it simple - we use the SP500 index for stocks and a bond fund for bonds, no individual stocks/bonds.  We adjust our risk by moving our stock/bond mix between the two funds - ie, when we wanted more risk we used a 90/10 mix, after retirement we went to about a 50/50 mix.

[souldoubt]

One more vote for Vanguard.  I started a Roth IRA with WAMU (now Chase) back in probably 2001 and it was in a mutual fund that to it's credit performed alright but it was when markets were up and before markets got hammered in 2008.  After reading some index investing books recommended on the old MSN boards I moved everything from WAMU to Vanguard around 2007.  Vanguard made the move ridiculously easy and I stuck my Roth IRA in a target retirement fund as at the time I didn't have a huge balance and breaking it up in various funds wasn't an option.  Since then I've started my taxable account through Vanguard and everything is linked to my bank account so I can buy and sell with ease.  I've helped both my mom and gf start Vanguard accounts and it was really easy to get them up and running as well.    

[Bonny]

Apr 1, 2014 11:19:59 GMT -5 phil5185 said:

Another vote for Vanguard. My Roth, rollover, and taxable accounts are all there.

Us too.  We keep it simple - we use the SP500 index for stocks and a bond fund for bonds, no individual stocks/bonds.  We adjust our risk by moving our stock/bond mix between the two funds - ie, when we wanted more risk we used a 90/10 mix, after retirement we went to about a 50/50 mix.

We have a sizable taxable stock portfolio for two reasons;

1) We inherited a portfolio via DH's grandmother's Trust. Some of the Blue Chips in that fund were acquired back in the early 70s and have sizeable capital gains. This was a by-pass Trust so no step up in value when DFIL died.

2) If it were up to me, every time we sold a stock (for rebalancing-some of our holdings got pretty big due to reinvesting dividends) we would invest those proceeds in the S&P 500. Over a long period of time I would actively convert in order to simplify our holdings. DH doesn't agree. He doesn't like the fact that you have to pay a monthly fee for mutual funds so he prefers to keep investing in individual stocks for this account. (We are invested in mutual funds in our retirement accounts). So far he's done pretty well with his picks so I can't complain too much even though it's not my style. But if anything happens to him, I'm implementing MY program. My idea of fun is not worrying about how the stock market is doing from day to day.

[greeniis10]

Curious, if you don't mind disclosing, how much is the annual fee at Wells Fargo?  And is it per account?  Just wondering.

Also, Vanguard or Fidelity are good choices, as everyone else has already said.

[tcu2003]

Apr 1, 2014 11:38:25 GMT -5 greeniis10 said:

Curious, if you don't mind disclosing, how much is the annual fee at Wells Fargo?  And is it per account?  Just wondering.

Also, Vanguard or Fidelity are good choices, as everyone else has already said.

Too much. I think it is $65/year. And don't flame me - I opened it when I didn't know any better, and used a local brokerage guy, and have just been to lazy to change it. And now looking at y account online, I think I have to pay a $95 IRA Termination Fee. Grrrrr.

[greeniis10]

Apr 1, 2014 12:45:57 GMT -5 tcu2003 said:

Apr 1, 2014 11:38:25 GMT -5 greeniis10 said:

Curious, if you don't mind disclosing, how much is the annual fee at Wells Fargo?  And is it per account?  Just wondering.

Also, Vanguard or Fidelity are good choices, as everyone else has already said.

Too much. I think it is $65/year. And don't flame me - I opened it when I didn't know any better, and used a local brokerage guy, and have just been to lazy to change it. And now looking at y account online, I think I have to pay a $95 IRA Termination Fee. Grrrrr.

Definitely no flames from me!  To you, anyway.  For the company, oh boy, different story.  They have a bad reputation for fees, so I was really curious.  Thanks for the response. 

[Deleted]

I really hate Wells Fargo...

[tcu2003]

Anyone know if the termination fee is pretty standard, or if I can possibly get out of it? And for those that transferred an IRA, once you get it transferred over, do you then have to call your old brokerage company and officially close it?

[yogiii]

Call vanguard and talk to someone.  Pretty sure they will pay half the fee if you transfer to them.  Also vanguard will handle the whole transfer.

[Bonny]

Apr 1, 2014 13:46:42 GMT -5 yogiii said:

Call vanguard and talk to someone.  Pretty sure they will pay half the fee if you transfer to them.  Also vanguard will handle the whole transfer.

I seem to recall that I was able to reduce some of the transaction fee when I moved an very small IRA from Merrill Lynch to Vanguard but Vanguard would not pay for any of the termination fee.

I call it my "learning curve".

[greeniis10]

Wow, if Vanguard would pay half the termination fee that is great!  Otherwise, as far as I know, there's NO escaping those fees at Wells Fargo.  But, no, once it is transferred OUT you do not have to call to close the account. 

[Ombud]

Apr 1, 2014 13:24:02 GMT -5 tcu2003 said:

Anyone know if the termination fee is pretty standard, or if I can possibly get out of it? And for those that transferred an IRA, once you get it transferred over, do you then have to call your old brokerage company and officially close it?

Schwab will cover the fee in an IRA to IRA transfer. That's pretty much industry standard as far as I know. Plus the receiving facility can always do the paperwork as they have the recipient account info which will close the old account. But print out basis record first. Once you're out you're done with them

[Gardening Grandma]

Apr 1, 2014 13:24:02 GMT -5 tcu2003 said:

Anyone know if the termination fee is pretty standard, or if I can possibly get out of it? And for those that transferred an IRA, once you get it transferred over, do you then have to call your old brokerage company and officially close it?

We paid $100 termination fee for each account  (a bargain, imo).  The old brokerage was Smith Barney

Never had to talk to the old brokerage co - Vanguard handled everything... Easy Peasy