Why choose to hold your IRA/Roth IRA at a brokerage house like Fidelity instead of your local bank??

Answer 1

LAST ANSWER...WRONG !! I hold several IRA's with Fidelity and I can buy ANYTHING on almost ANY market at home on my keyboard. Fidelity has many funds from many companies ( most WITHOUT a transaction fee)
That is THE reason I prefer my IRA's ( mine, my wife's, my daughters' ) at Fidelity instead of "the bank".
The holdings are as diverse as Fidelity Real Estate...Canadian Energy Trusts...ETF's of Mexico, Aerospace, Defense, a Neuberger fund, a U.S. Global fund, stocks in Saks, Eagle Materials, Ansoft, Suez( French "water company") ELP ( Brazilian power company) on and on...
You can do similar...or you can elect to hold everything in two or three funds....BUT, its up to you, and YOU change ( add, buy, sell, move to "cash") at your convenience. You can be aware of your status ANYTIME..( and what to do about it) you don't wait for a quarterly report.
As far as advice or such....they have phone numbers on the web-site...or E-mails are answered promptly...and they probably have one or two pamphlets on every aspect of investing or planning that you could possibly use.( and videos...and charts...and graphs and comparisons.....)
The " guy at the bank" is probably just wondering if it's time to go to Burger King !!!

Answer 2

When you have an IRA at Fidelity, you can invest only in Fidelity's mutual funds. If you hold an IRA at Vanguard, you can invest it in Vanguard's funds, but not Fidelity's or anyone else's.

If you have an IRA at a brokerage, you can buy individual stocks and ETFs in it. (Note: Vanguard and Fidelity and other firms and banks usually have brokerages as part of the company, so technically you can have an brokerage IRA through those companies, too).

So you should open the account where you can buy the type of investments you want--and where fees and commissions (at a brokerage) are minimized--usually the best bet is not at a bank.

Answer 3

I can only answer this based upon my decision and investigation. Some people may disagree. The brokerage houses, particularly the discount brokers provide more options and at a lower cost than the banks. Banks tend to think in terms of fixed income type assets, not equities, such as bonds, CD, money markets, or a narrow range of mutual funds. Brokerage houses give you all that but much much more.
Places like Ameritrade, TD Waterhouse, Scottrade, Etrade, Fidelity, etc. give you zero personal advise (or very little) but very competitive pricing. I like them over full service brokers or banks. Fidelity, depending on the amount of funds invested, can go either way; maybe other can also. I have used a couple of these above but recommend that you check them out for yourselves. Do you want a local office or all internet communications? Do you want advice or do you know how and what you want to do? Do you need research or do you do your own? These are all key.

Answer 4

You'll have a lot more options on were to invest with a brokerage than you'll have with a bank. And even with banks, different banks offer different investments. My own banks IRA's are nothing more than a savings account. About the only good thing about an IRA there is that you're deferring taxes. You're not getting much of a return (about 5% at the moment and most Mutual Funds are returning a lot more than that).

At a Brokerage, you can chose from hundreds if not thousands of different Mutual Funds.

Answer 5

I in my opinion use fidelity and that i fairly like their provider. i don't sense that there is a textile substitute between the firms. they are all very enormous, comfortable, no-load firms. in case you check out out the internet internet internet site for the three fund families which you in simple terms suggested, they are going to all a lot fairly have a link that talks approximately all of their 4 & 5 famous person rated (Morningstar score) funds. you will possibly desire to establish upon the fund relatives that has in all hazard the main surprisingly rated funds over a huge spectrum of investments. subsequently i admire fidelity. lots of the objective retirement date mutual funds make investments almost each and all of the assests in mutual funds of the equivalent mutual fund relatives. in this enjoy, it fairly is especially extra beneficial to establish upon the relatives that has the biggest and a lot multiple portolio of funds. this is an exceptionally properly investment option for a small investor. attempt to additionally determine upon a relatives or provider so as which you will latest you options down the line. I understand you would be waiting to place funds into shares, bonds, and annuities with fidelity, i'm no longer confident approximately T.Rowe and leading edge. My ingredient is, you my desire that function in 5 years. I strongly motivate you to study the internet web pages for all 3. Ask your self what kind of learn and assessment factors they latest you. whilst you're 25 and saving for retirement, you're already a leg up on a lot individuals. Down the line, you are able to desire a lot of those factors.

Answer 6

I certainly wouldn't. My bank, Wells Fargo has a discount brokerage arm and I would advise others who do business with major banks with brokerage subsidiaries to compare the discount brokerage services offered by their bank with their current discount broker. In my case, because of my relationship holdings with the bank I receive 100 free trades per year (that's $0 for each trade and includes stocks as well as ETFs) on each of my 3 brokerage accounts (brokerage, rollover IRA, and roth IRA) no annual custodial fees, no banking fees whatsoever and one consolidated bank/brokerage statement....that's pretty tough to beat. As far as research goes I also receive free online S&P reports and all my banking and brokerage is done via one site which allows me to conveniently move funds between banking and brokerage and more efficiently manage my finances. How easy is it to qualify?....$25k is all you need and that is in aggregate between all brokerage accounts (standard and IRAs), banking, credit, and 10% of your mortgage. How easy is it to move your brokerage account to Wells Fargo Investments?...simply go online and fill out an application...submit it online along with the ACAT form...give them a call and fax a current brokerage statement for the account(s) you want to transfer...all done in less than 2 weeks. One last thing....because I am able to move funds easily between brokerage and banking online, I keep all my cash holdings on the brokerage side (not the bank side) in a money market fund currently earning 4.7%.....ETrade and TD Ameritrade are so blatently abusive to their customers that they pay less than 1% on customers cash holdings and they're a brokerage firm not a bank!....it's a total rip off.....go check out Wells Fargo.

Answer 7

Best thing to compare between the two is their annual fees; similar fund performances; and different available fund options. Fidelity will have numerous funds of all types, your local bank likely will have fewer choices.

Answer 8

More options for investments at a lower price.