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Strategies & Market Trends : A.I.M Users Group Bulletin Board -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LemonHead who wrote (9403)	11/29/1999 9:08:00 PM
From: steve in socal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18928

hey 'head--- re brokerage acoounts, it would be one less thing for you to bitch about!!! mellow in marysville

To: LemonHead who wrote (9403)	11/30/1999 2:19:00 PM
From: OldAIMGuy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18928

Hi Keith, Merrill is now offering such percentage deals as well. Yes, for the hyperactive day-trader it makes some sense and even for some of our AIM users. Robert G. comes to mind. He has his 401K and IRA money set up with very tight SAFE values and does much more trading than I do. His "deal" with ML is for about 1% of account value/year if I remember right. The bonus he gets is very good accounting in his reports from them. I've thought about this sort of thing. My current costs are just slightly below the 1% level on an average basis, but of course there's no "carrying cost" during flat market times. With a fixed percent, as long as we're active, there's really no parisitic loss. However in a flat year, it's 1% out the window. This isn't that different than what mutual funds "charge" their clients. The average mutual fund fee is 1.10%. Hope this helps confuse the issue for you! :-) Best regards, Tom PS: I don't find this "off topic" at all!

To: LemonHead who wrote (9403)	12/1/1999 3:38:00 PM
From: OldAIMGuy	Respond to of 18928

Hi Keith, Here's more from Robert G. about his Merrill Account that explains things in more depth. He's also said in other correspondence that this account has frequently filled his "GTC" orders at better prices than entered. This extra efficiency goes a long way to pay for the overall "bill" at the end of the year. Here's his letter: ----------------- Tom, Read your reply to Lemonhead in which you discussed my useage of Merrill Lynch's Unlimited Advantage account on the Silicon Investor boards. Thought that I might clarify things a bit in case you wanted to follow up a bit more with the group. The MLUA account charges a MAX of 1% on the first $1M in equities plus a MAX of 0.3% on the first $1M in cash, bonds, MMFs, etc. The practical effect is that an AIM investor will rarely pay the 1% fee since that implies that AIM is 100% invested and STARVED for cash to make more buys. A more typical situation will have the total AIM portfolio between 10% and 50% in overall cash. This will indicate a typical fee of about 0.85% to about 0.65%. More than a Vanguard S&P500 index fund, but competitive with a typical actively managed mutual fund. Yes, my AIM SAFE's and min trades are tighter than the Lichello rules. I am slowly changing several of my AIM stocks to use rules much closer to Lichello's formula, and in a couple of cases, they are already there. Even on my largest holding, TXN, I am using looser trading rules than when it was in the 401(k). ---------------------- Further, RG indicates that his 1999 inventory turnover rate in his deferred accounts has been around 100%. He considers this to be a bit high because of market price volatility during the year. He is anticipating something in the 50% to 70% turnover rate in the future as his SAFE values increase and volatility diminishes. Best regards, Tom