Rich,
The myth of better reliability and quality is what Schwab likes us to think (at least what I used to think, until I tried E-Trade in one of our accounts). I have had accounts at both places for over 2 years now, and can see absolutely no difference in quality and reliability.
In fact, I have had occasions at Schwab when my buys were not reported in the order status for over 12 hours after the trade, and many other occasions when the reported savings in execution price turned out to be not true. I tend to dismiss all these shortcomings as part of doing business, and don't mind about paying higher standard commission ($30 vs. $15-$20). But as I said, what really bugs me is the limit of 1,000 shares vs. 5,000 elsewhere, which makes the cost ratio to be 7-10:1 if you have to sell 5,000 shares (due averaging down or stock split)! This is pure arrogance, perpetuated by the myth of better quality and reliability. With the advance of (cheap) technology, the gap has shrunk very fast, and you can only use the myth for so long to charge higher commission than the rest of the industry. In fact, Discovery Brokerage (formerly Lombard Securities, now part of Morgan Stanley), which charges about the same as the rest of the online brokerage industry, has been rated #1 in quality and customer satisfaction for the last 3 years. If I were to start a new account, that would be the most likely place for me to be with (especially for account > $100K, IPO's, free researches, real-time quotes, etc...)
I, like most people, hate to make the change because it involves time delay, paperwork and inconvenience. We started with Schwab from the early days of discount brokerage, prior to online investing, and we are reluctant to change. But sometimes change is good for the competition as well as for my sanity and pocket book.
Thank you for your info regarding HXL. I will look into it. Regards, Dean |
