Thanks all for kind thoughts. OT:Tried to post the following a few weeks ago-it didn't take. If some of you with discount broker acct.s have found yourself in a position of selling early what was supposed to be long term holdings, expecting to buy the dip-the dip didn't materialize, and you look back 3 years later and see the stock has gone up huge [just like you originally thought] and you are not in-here is a possible solution that has worked for me: Open an acct. at a full service brokerage IE:very high commissions. Transfer in your best long term stocks-the ones you really belive in at current prices. Tell the broker to not call with any buy ideas. Tell him/her not to make any suggestions regarding your stocks. IE: no input or opinions except reporting action regarding dssp etc. Because of the nature of the acct. and high commissions, and the fact one can not just hit a couple buttons on the home computer, it will be much more likely that you will really hold those long term growth stocks you believe in and let the compounding work. I retained a full service acct. and have these stocks in there. It has worked very well for me until this past week, when even that was not enough firewall. Then the attorney holding certificates would have been a better idea. Interesting to note that the LT only acct with best ideas has more than kept pace with the trading oriented acct, and I have been pretty pleased with how the trading oriented acct. [discount broker] has been doing these past few years. The trading acct. requires real work, monitoring, and thought-but is at a disadvantage because of the commissions [small commiss.X big volume adds up], bid-ask spread slippage . The LT acct. is much more tax efficient of course.
FWIW, I just signed up for American Express discount brokerage. For assets over $100K, there is no commission to buy and sell. for $25K to $100K it's $15 to sell but $0 to buy. Barrons has them rated well overall. Will know better how it works after trying it out for a few months, so this is not a recommendation. Just thought I'd pass the info along on a no commiss. acct. Look at the details, I think there is a charge for options. A certain # of real time quotes are provided. thanks, Mike |
