Originally published: Saturday, June 07, 2014; most-recently modified: Tuesday, May 14, 2019
$173 per trade! With the value of your assets I bet either Vanguard or Fidelity would charge you $0 for a while and then less than $10.
You know I had problems with Vanguard's administration a couple of years ago but they can probably handle a rollover IRA.
I analyzed Peggy's "managed account" at Wells Fargo and when you count up all the fees it's 2% per annum for a portfolio that over the last 3 years has had a total return of 1/2 that of mine, which has fees of 0.09% per annum.
Posted by: G4 | Jun 30, 2014 7:36 PM
I'm not sure I can solve your problem, but I have discovered a small solution to something. As you know, an IRA is required to have a minimum distribution. For that, you generally have to sell something. And to do that, you have to pay a sales commission. Yesterday, I looked at the fine print and discover Wells Fargo is charging me $173 per transaction to sell index funds.
So, unless some reader persuades me otherwise, I'm going to move the IRA to either Vanguard or Fidelity, and save myself something like $165 a month. True, I will lose out on Wells Fargo's wisdom, but since they haven't called me in two years, there hasn't been much wisdom aimed at me.