patrick.net

No, no, no, no Merrill Lynch!!
Merrill went bankrupt in 2008 for its own stupidity and Paulson forced B of A to take it as a condition of bailing out bankrupt B of A.

Stop talking to him and anyone else that is at Merrill or Morgan Stanley, etc.

Run to a Fidelity store or go online to get your shit transferred.

1. Mutual funds are the essence of investing.
2. Vanguard, T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, Primecap Odyssey have anything you need.
3. See the fund expense ratio, they’re 0.65% for Primecap, 0.25% or less at Vanguard, some index funds are 0% “Fidelity Zero”
4. I prefer actively managed funds in a retirement account, but it really doesn’t matter much.

What’s 1% of 1/2 million bucks? You want to throw away 5 grand per year of your future, so a guy calls you a couple of times per year to say “things are going okay”?

clambo says

No, no, no, no Merrill Lynch!!
Merrill went bankrupt in 2008 for its own stupidity and Paulson forced B of A to take it as a condition of bailing out bankrupt B of A.

Stop talking to him and anyone else that is at Merrill or Morgan Stanley, etc.

Run to a Fidelity store or go online to get your shit transferred.

1. Mutual funds are the essence of investing.
2. Vanguard, T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, Primecap Odyssey have anything you need.
3. See the fund expense ratio, they’re 0.65% for Primecap, 0.25% or less at Vanguard, some index funds are 0% “Fidelity Zero”
4. I prefer actively managed funds in a retirement account, but it really doesn’t matter much.

What’s 1% of 1/2 million bucks? You want to throw away 5 grand per year of your future, so a guy calls you a couple of times per year to say “things are going okay”?

Wow, I did not know Bank of America owned Merrill Lynch. Good to know.
Q: This 401k is through my employer, can I move it to a different broker? My employer matches my contributions.

If it’s an active 401k where you are still working, then you contact the administrator and see the fund choices you have available to you.

This will limit your choices, but it is good to get something that says its objective is “capital appreciation”

I concur with clambo and 1.5% is a lot, esp if it's a standard fare vanilla fund ala S&P500, Nasdaq100, Mid-Cap, etc. You should only pay a solid management fee if it's a type of actively traded account where the trader/portfolio manager pursues a type of a hedging strategy then in following the lemmings out there.

Trust me, if you pick your favorite brand stocks out of the SPYD ETF, chances are, you'll beat many of these inept money managers esp the ones at BoA/Merrill and you'll won't be paying for your trades.

I'd take some risk and put it into a few select small cap growth stocks after thorough DD, if you don't want to do research then buy a few high dividend paying bellwethers. No need for funds.

I agree, 1.5% is way too much.

Rin says

Trust me, if you pick your favorite brand stocks out of the SPYD ETF, chances are, you'll beat many of these inept money managers esp the ones at BoA/Merrill and you'll won't be paying for your trades.

I agree with this too.

Just pick your favorite 10 stocks out of their ETF and you have your no-fee ETF with complete control.

Patrick says

Just pick your favorite 10 stocks out of their ETF and you have your no-fee ETF with complete control.

Also, SPYD is the dividend one, thus, you get money every quarter, here's my earlier post on it ...

https://patrick.net/post/1338471?0#comment-1740521

I was thinking more of State Street SPDR which has a lower expense of 0.07%

You can download the Excel sheet of all their holdings on State Street Global Advisor's web site

https://www.ssga.com/us/en/institutional/etfs/funds/spdr-portfolio-sp-500-high-dividend-etf-spyd

Look for the download link just below the Top 10 Holdings section, it also gives the percentages & no of shares held.

Ticker Symbol: SPYD
Holdings: As of 16-Mar-2021

Name Ticker
HollyFrontier Corporation HFC
Valero Energy Corporation VLO
ConocoPhillips COP
Hanesbrands Inc. HBI
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. HPE
People's United Financial Inc. PBCT
Seagate Technology PLC STX
Lumen Technologies Inc. LUMN
Vornado Realty Trust VNO
Exxon Mobil Corporation XOM
Regency Centers Corporation REG
Omnicom Group Inc OMC
Marathon Petroleum Corporation MPC
Simon Property Group Inc. SPG
Fifth Third Bancorp FITB
Xerox Holdings Corporation XRX
Invesco Ltd. IVZ
Lincoln National Corporation LNC
Federal Realty Investment Trust FRT
Equity Residential EQR
Interpublic Group of Companies Inc. IPG
Iron Mountain Inc. IRM
Altria Group Inc MO
American International Group Inc. AIG
Regions Financial Corporation RF
Kraft Heinz Company KHC
SL Green Realty Corp. SLG
U.S. Bancorp USB
Chevron Corporation CVX
Phillips 66 PSX
MetLife Inc. MET
Huntington Bancshares Incorporated HBAN
Boston Properties Inc. BXP
Welltower Inc. WELL
AvalonBay Communities Inc. AVB
ONEOK Inc. OKE
Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc WBA
LyondellBasell Industries NV LYB
Kimco Realty Corporation KIM
Citizens Financial Group Inc. CFG
Ventas Inc. VTR
Truist Financial Corporation TFC
FirstEnergy Corp. FE
Western Union Company WU
Franklin Resources Inc. BEN
Principal Financial Group Inc. PFG
KeyCorp KEY
Prudential Financial Inc. PRU
Evergy Inc. EVRG
Unum Group UNM
Public Storage PSA
Comerica Incorporated CMA
Dow Inc. DOW
Philip Morris International Inc. PM
Leggett & Platt Incorporated LEG
International Business Machines Corporation IBM
Williams Companies Inc. WMB
Realty Income Corporation O
M&T Bank Corporation MTB
Healthpeak Properties Inc. PEAK
Entergy Corporation ETR
Consolidated Edison Inc. ED
Baker Hughes Company Class A BKR
Kinder Morgan Inc Class P KMI
Newell Brands Inc NWL
Amcor PLC AMCR
AT&T Inc. T
Pinnacle West Capital Corporation PNW
Duke Energy Corporation DUK
International Paper Company IP
Broadcom Inc. AVGO
Dominion Energy Inc D
Exelon Corporation EXC
Southern Company SO
PPL Corporation PPL
Edison International EIX
AbbVie Inc. ABBV
Pfizer Inc. PFE
Verizon Communications Inc. VZ
Gilead Sciences Inc. GILD

Sure, the above isn't all the dividend stocks in the market, but it's a good start.

And if you want to trim the list, avoid those which been nothing but bullish for the past 4 years with no corrections along the way.

Try some % into total stock market indexes or growth index to be moderately defensive with less risk.

I never asked you how long you were going to be working, but I’m assuming you have a few decades left on earth.

Want to see the effect of fees on your future net worth?

Use an online calculator for the future value of money.

Pick a rate of return and a period of time like 20 years. Try 8.5-9%

Then repeat the exercise and enter 1% less, e.g. 7.5-8%

Notice the HUGE difference? That’s how much it costs over time.

The “actively managed” funds are considered extremely successful if they can beat an index of similar stocks by 1%, frequently funds are compared to the S&P 500 index.

And, many don’t beat the index.

clambo says

I never asked you how long you were going to be working, but I’m assuming you have a few decades left on earth.

53

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My referral code is:

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Thanks if you use it!