March was kind of different for me because I decided to change some of my brokerage firms. When I first started investing I picked Sharebuilder because the interface was simple, fees were low, and they didn’t require a minimum investment. Now there are a lot more options for investing and I needed to start innovating my investment portfolio. The first part of that was to open a Robinhood account. I did that part a couple of years ago. The next part was to open a Charles Schwab account. Of course the question is why Charles Schwab? There are several reasons. First of all Sharebuilder a few years ago got bought out by Capital One. When they did that they got rid of a lot of the investor tools that used to be on the website. I preferred the old investor tools and find that the new tools with Capital One do not give me the information I need to make an investment decision. The second reason is due to the trading fee. With Capital One I paid $7.95 per trade and with Charles Schwab I pay $4.95 per trade. The last reason is the biggest reason I got a Charles Schwab account and it has to do with my new Charles Schwab debit card. The card is awesome. No fees ever. With my investment account I get a no fee interest bearing checking account. No fees for a checking account and they pay me for it! Go figure. Then it gets better because I get a Visa debit card with that account. Not just any Visa debit card, a completely no fee debit card. No fees for taking out money at any time! When I went to Japan and used my Wells Fargo card I got hit with so many fees. $2.50 by the atm, $3.00 for using a non-Wells Fargo atm, and a 3% money conversion fee. With Charles Schwab that is a thing of the past. So convenient.
\nTo make that change I had to sell all my Sharebuilder stocks and then start to rebuy them on Charles Schwab. I probably didn’t make as much money as I could have but I still came out ahead so it was all good. <\/p>\n
457K Account: $105.82
\nRobinhood Account: $84.01
\n AGNC (American Capital Agency Corp.) \u2013 $5.94
\n O – (Realty Income Corp.) – $3.37
\n ORC – (Orchid Capital Inc.) – $14.14
\n WMC – (Western Asset Mortgage Capital Corp.) – $7.13
\n WTR – (Aqua America Inc.) – $2.30
\n WFC – (Wells Fargo Co.) – $1.90
\n HCP – (HCP Inc.) – $7.40
\n FUN – (Cedar Park LP) – $1.71
\n EPR – (EPR Properties) – $.68
\n HSY – (Hershey Co.) $.62
\n DF – (Dean Foods Co.) – $2.70
\n FTR – (Frontier Communications Corp.) – $36.12<\/p>\n
Sharebuilder Account: $2.55
\n UL – (Unilever) – $2.55<\/p>\n
Charles Schwab: $0<\/p>\n
Total March 2017 Dividends: $192.38<\/p>\n
Shares Sold\/Bought
\nO – (Realty Income Corp.) – Buy
\nGE – (General Electric Co.) – Buy
\nSPY – (SPDR S&P 500) – Buy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
March was kind of different for me because I decided to change some of my brokerage firms. When I first started investing I picked Sharebuilder because the interface was simple, fees were low, and they didn’t require a minimum investment. … Continue reading