Here at New Perspectives, we like to keep an eagles eye on fees. Fees are a drag on portfolio performance and every dollar that you can cut from fees is a dollar in your account, earning a return. We custody most of our assets at TD Ameritrade because of their low fee structure for administration and great low cost options for investment. We are big fans of exchange traded funds (ETFs) for their annual fee and tax benefits.
TD Ameritrade has a slate of ETFs which are free for us to trade in client accounts. These are excellent and fit well into our portfolio management process.
In the past few years, Schwab (disclosure, i use Schwab as a retail broker) has started to step into the ETF game itself. They have made a few basic ETFs with low fees and no trading comissions for Schwab brokerage clients. Schwab has not had the diversity that TD Ameritrade had, however, until now. Schwab announced today that they are offering clients over 100 free to trade ETFs on their platform.
Regardless of the platform, lowering or eliminating costs is a win for the investor. We continue to keep an eye on the lowest cost, most effective way to manage portfolios as the investment industry finds efficiencies and drives down cost through competition.
Independent, Fee-Only Financial Advisor
