Investing In 2021, Yes Nerds Please Chime In!

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Investing in 2021, yes nerds please chime in!
 Leviathan.Draugo
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By Leviathan.Draugo 2021-04-06 18:53:36
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So......

Don't know if there is another topic of this subject around, but I figure hey why not. This is the only proper forum that I post to, may as well hear all your opinions as strange and random as they may be about it.

I dabbled in ShareBuilder back in the day when I was active duty and did ok at it. Wish I had kept my pre-android-gmail google stock I had at the time, but what evers.

I had a ROTH IRA going, and liquidated it for personal reasons.

Just now I checked to see if ShareBuilder was even still around, but apparently it got gobbled up by a much larger investing conglomerate.

So my current three basic questions are thus:

#1 If I did have change off that original ShareBuilder account I had, where might it be if it still has value?

#2 Is there a similar type of new platform that exists to try and restart my investing dabbles?

#3 What are you using in general, Want to start capping my annual ROTH again at a bare minimum. but I would rather be the person who picks which stocks bonds et al MY money becomes invested in.

Hope this is a fresh topic, lets talk money!
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 Leviathan.Draugo
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By Leviathan.Draugo 2021-04-06 19:04:33
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As a follow up, looks like Robinhood, might be what I am after to re-invest, thoughts?

ROTH IRA is a must though, so have not looked too far into if that is available for that company.
 Asura.Kingnobody
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By Asura.Kingnobody 2021-04-06 19:10:42
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Honestly, if you are going to self-invest, you would want to use a broker who doesn't charge fees for trades.

There are a few out there, some with long histories of no-fee trades, but requires a minimum purchase (could be as low as $100, could be as high as $5,000). Robinhood gets their money from trading fees, so I wouldn't recommend that.

I know that Charles Schwab and Merrill Lynch/Edge have portfolios that doesn't charge trading fees for self-managed investment portfolios, but you would have to do all the research on stocks/bonds/funds yourself.

Honestly, it really depends on what you want to do. If you want the hands-on approach, I would recommend opening an investment account to self-manage. If you want a hands-off approach, then opening a managed account would be best for you, but the fees would be a lot (your rate of return should still increase proportionally to the fees though, so it's still all a risk).

Sorry I can't help you further honestly.
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 Leviathan.Draugo
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By Leviathan.Draugo 2021-04-06 19:19:19
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Asura.Kingnobody said: »
I would recommend opening an investment account to self-manage.

Yes this is what I am after, question first is does it have a ROTH "product" I get to self manage, and second would be what company/ies are there?

And by company/ies, I mean, big guy CEO that I am obviously forced to have to go through to start up my wee-little nest egg. AKA something trustworthy website/firm that I know will not fold out in the next 10 years before they forget to payout my ***.
 Leviathan.Draugo
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By Leviathan.Draugo 2021-04-06 19:20:34
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Asura.Kingnobody said: »
Robinhood gets their money from trading fees, so I wouldn't recommend that.
Also thanks for this clarification.
 Leviathan.Draugo
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By Leviathan.Draugo 2021-04-06 19:32:36
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The thing I liked about sharebuilder truly was the ability to buy fractions of expensive shares per month that still paid dividends and splits fairly. All within my IRA. The splits just continued to grow my base percentage of the stocks, and the dividends I could use as the extra play money, for new stocks I wanted to try in my portfolio.

So I hope that there is a similar type of broker out there.
 Asura.Kingnobody
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By Asura.Kingnobody 2021-04-06 20:10:40
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Leviathan.Draugo said: »
Yes this is what I am after, question first is does it have a ROTH "product" I get to self manage, and second would be what company/ies are there?
ROTH is just a tax-preferred account where you pay the taxes today on the money earned for investing and can take out the money tax-free later on (well, the basis, not the gains).

This is an ok breakdown of Roth vs. Traditional.

With a traditional IRA, the money you invest is deducted from your AGI (which lowers your taxable income) but you have zero basis of the investments you make, so you would have to pay taxes when you withdraw on the full amount. This method is preferred if you expect to pay less taxes in the future than you would today. Meaning, if you are in the 32% tax bracket in 2021, but you expect to be in the 22% tax bracket in 2041 when you retire, this method would pay off because you take taxable deductions at the 32% tax bracket and only pay 22% tax when you withdraw. Lots of ifs though.

A ROTH IRA is basically not allowing you to take the tax deductions today, but you have basis on the investments so when you start taking distributions when you retire, you will only have to pay the taxes on any gains you make. This is important because these gains are considered Capital Gains and the taxes on this are capped at 20% (assuming the tax law doesn't change, which it will). Meaning you will still pay taxes in the later part of your life, but they will be small compared to your other income, and will never exceed what your normal regular income tax is, unless they change the law to make capital gains tax the same as ordinary, which would wreck both the economy and any investments you have.

So, there is really no difference between the two investment accounts other than how they are treated tax-wise.

If you want to play the safe, non-penalty route, just open up a non-IRA account and you can make withdrawals at any time you want without having penalties associated with those withdrawals. You don't get the protection of a retirement account, but you do get the ease of accessibility if you ever need it.
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 Valefor.Worlace
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By Valefor.Worlace 2021-04-06 20:13:53
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Almost every broker does not charge commissions for stock trades these days. There is a "fee" for all of them, but it is hidden. That is a discussion for another day anyway.

I would stay away from Robinhood, personally. They do not have a solid enough capital base to deal with a real level of trading, hence why there were issues earlier this year with a large list of stocks being banned for trading.

Roth IRA conversation. If you need access to the money in the near term and have a decent amount of non-retirement savings, then you can go this route. Otherwise, there's no harm going with a regular brokerage account. All of these are self-directed; i.e. you pick your own investments. The difference is that the former's gains and income is tax-exempt whereas the latter is not. But to be blunt unless we're talking about money in the hundreds of thousands it's not really a material conversation anyway.
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 Asura.Kingnobody
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By Asura.Kingnobody 2021-04-06 20:14:50
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Leviathan.Draugo said: »
second would be what company/ies are there?
Sorry, I missed this part.

You got:

Wells Fargo Advisors
Merrill Lynch/Edge (sub of Bank of America)
Charles Schwab
JPMorgan Chase
Edward Jones
Fidelity

Those are the "national" brands that there are, and those are just a portion of the investment firms I use. Greater than 50% of my investments are done in local firms, so unless you live in South Texas, I cannot help you with the local firms.
 Asura.Kingnobody
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By Asura.Kingnobody 2021-04-06 20:17:41
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Valefor.Worlace said: »
Almost every broker does not charge commissions for stock trades these days. There is a "fee" for all of them, but it is hidden. That is a discussion for another day anyway.
Only if they are managed. Self-managed accounts do not charge fees, they just hold onto the investments.

I personally have some self-managed accounts and never get charged a fee, neither selling, buying, or maintaining these accounts.

Mind you, these accounts have large figures in them and do not earn any interest, so that may play a factor.
 Lakshmi.Watusa
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By Lakshmi.Watusa 2021-04-06 20:20:11
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Leviathan.Draugo said: »
So......

Don't know if there is another topic of this subject around, but I figure hey why not. This is the only proper forum that I post to, may as well hear all your opinions as strange and random as they may be about it.

I dabbled in ShareBuilder back in the day when I was active duty and did ok at it. Wish I had kept my pre-android-gmail google stock I had at the time, but what evers.

I had a ROTH IRA going, and liquidated it for personal reasons.

Just now I checked to see if ShareBuilder was even still around, but apparently it got gobbled up by a much larger investing conglomerate.

So my current three basic questions are thus:

#1 If I did have change off that original ShareBuilder account I had, where might it be if it still has value?

#2 Is there a similar type of new platform that exists to try and restart my investing dabbles?

#3 What are you using in general, Want to start capping my annual ROTH again at a bare minimum. but I would rather be the person who picks which stocks bonds et al MY money becomes invested in.

Hope this is a fresh topic, lets talk money!

1) Your assets would have transferred over to the brokerage company leading the M&A, which I think was eTrade. I'd suggest giving them a call, they should be able to find your account with just your SIN.

2) You're looking for anything called a "self-directed broker" or "discount brokerage." Robinhood is actually one of those, they don't charge commissions on buy orders iirc. WealthSimple is another (might be Canadian only).
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 Lakshmi.Watusa
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By Lakshmi.Watusa 2021-04-06 20:34:44
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Leviathan.Draugo said: »
AKA something trustworthy website/firm that I know will not fold out in the next 10 years before they forget to payout my ***.

You wouldn't need to worry about that, the SIPA protects you in cases of brokerage insolvency.
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 Leviathan.Draugo
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By Leviathan.Draugo 2021-04-06 20:44:27
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Thanks for the responses people, I will get back to researching this information.
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By DaneBlood 2021-04-06 22:51:23
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Leviathan.Draugo said: »
So......

#3 What are you using in general, Want to start capping my annual ROTH again at a bare minimum. but I would rather be the person who picks which stocks bonds et al MY money becomes invested in.

Hope this is a fresh topic, lets talk money!

fidelity and schwab is often recommende for its low fees when having your IRA invested in index funds.
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 Leviathan.Draugo
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By Leviathan.Draugo 2021-04-07 00:11:11
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Asura.Kingnobody said: »
Leviathan.Draugo said: »
second would be what company/ies are there?
Sorry, I missed this part.

You got:

Wells Fargo Advisors
Merrill Lynch/Edge (sub of Bank of America)
Charles Schwab
JPMorgan Chase
Edward Jones
Fidelity

Those are the "national" brands that there are, and those are just a portion of the investment firms I use. Greater than 50% of my investments are done in local firms, so unless you live in South Texas, I cannot help you with the local firms.
"local firms" meaning local banks in your area?
 Leviathan.Draugo
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By Leviathan.Draugo 2021-04-07 00:19:35
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Asura.Kingnobody said: »
Leviathan.Draugo said: »
Yes this is what I am after, question first is does it have a ROTH "product" I get to self manage, and second would be what company/ies are there?
ROTH is just a tax-preferred account where you pay the taxes today on the money earned for investing and can take out the money tax-free later on (well, the basis, not the gains).

This is an ok breakdown of Roth vs. Traditional.

With a traditional IRA, the money you invest is deducted from your AGI (which lowers your taxable income) but you have zero basis of the investments you make, so you would have to pay taxes when you withdraw on the full amount. This method is preferred if you expect to pay less taxes in the future than you would today. Meaning, if you are in the 32% tax bracket in 2021, but you expect to be in the 22% tax bracket in 2041 when you retire, this method would pay off because you take taxable deductions at the 32% tax bracket and only pay 22% tax when you withdraw. Lots of ifs though.

A ROTH IRA is basically not allowing you to take the tax deductions today, but you have basis on the investments so when you start taking distributions when you retire, you will only have to pay the taxes on any gains you make. This is important because these gains are considered Capital Gains and the taxes on this are capped at 20% (assuming the tax law doesn't change, which it will). Meaning you will still pay taxes in the later part of your life, but they will be small compared to your other income, and will never exceed what your normal regular income tax is, unless they change the law to make capital gains tax the same as ordinary, which would wreck both the economy and any investments you have.

So, there is really no difference between the two investment accounts other than how they are treated tax-wise.

If you want to play the safe, non-penalty route, just open up a non-IRA account and you can make withdrawals at any time you want without having penalties associated with those withdrawals. You don't get the protection of a retirement account, but you do get the ease of accessibility if you ever need it.

Ya know..... at first when I saw this post I thought I already knew what you were going to say about what the difference between the two was.....

But then I read it, and I would like to say thank you for taking the time to reiterate it to me, because now I know where I was mistaken.

Since I now dub this thread a "generic investment advice" thread, I would like all who read it, to go ahead and re-read the above quoted statement.
 Asura.Kingnobody
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By Asura.Kingnobody 2021-04-08 09:05:49
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Leviathan.Draugo said: »
Asura.Kingnobody said: »
Leviathan.Draugo said: »
second would be what company/ies are there?
Sorry, I missed this part.

You got:

Wells Fargo Advisors
Merrill Lynch/Edge (sub of Bank of America)
Charles Schwab
JPMorgan Chase
Edward Jones
Fidelity

Those are the "national" brands that there are, and those are just a portion of the investment firms I use. Greater than 50% of my investments are done in local firms, so unless you live in South Texas, I cannot help you with the local firms.
"local firms" meaning local banks in your area?
Doesn't have to be local banks.

I'm talking about independent firms that does nothing but investing.
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 Leviathan.Andret
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By Leviathan.Andret 2021-04-08 10:37:14
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If you are a traditional, conservative and don't want to poke around self investing then you look around your area for an investing firm. You pay a fee and they invest for you under your direction.

They are very informative and generally better than your average investment banker simply because you pay them so they are a bit like your own accountant or lawyer. Of course some of them aren't great so you have to talk to them.

If you are cheap and want to have a "fire and forget" portfolio then pretty much any major banks or brookers people listed above will do. They often charge a fee per trade and you shouldn't touch your stuff more than a couple times a year.

Lastly, if you want to tinker around and do some day trading then you will want a discount broker with a phone app. Robinhood and Webull are examples. They don't charge anything for buying and selling. However they tend to make your trades more expensive by a couple cent because they sell your trade information before they trade. For most retail investors this isn't important buy this become a fair bit more important for large institutions.
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