Hi Hook,
We're in Ridgewood, NJ; Bergen County; next to Paramus. Just south of the NYS state line.
BUT I grew up in the Oakwood section of Staten Island. [small world ! ;^) ]
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I think [ don't quote me ] FolioFN sweeps into a 2+% interest thing. Over 25K cash balance and you get a better rate.
Because Folio is so good with tiny transactions, ... out to four decimal places of one share ... I tend to do all my trading there. If and when I amass a large chunk, I sell it on Folio and buy it back on some other account where I have some cash amassed.
The only discount on-line brokerage that I know of (and my experience is limited to about five) that pays decent interest rates is Muriel Siebert; they pay 4.3% right now on ALL cash balances with continuous sweeps into a money market fund. [You can choose from three.] Their commissions are $14.95. I have complained to the others about why don't they do something like Siebert does with interest; Scottrade has said they're looking at it. Folio said something similar, but I suspect they are still digesting all my other suggestions ... yet. [I make a LOT of suggestions.]
Every brokerage has its pluses and minuses. Siebert made some other changes to their software for me. And Scottrade is probably also digesting some of my other suggestions. They require "ONLY" a couple of minor software "tweaks"
;^)
I don't press them on the interest issue too much because most of them have whole families of mutual funds that can be traded without a fee. And some include money market funds. BUT some fund families charge extra if you're in and out.
It's just as easy to use CHY for money / interest earning balances. But buy low!
One of the bizarre episodes is the radical swings in some of the bond funds. CHY and CHI and etc. A couple of years ago, I invited myself to the annual meeting of one of the funds that had offices in NYC. I was the only outsider; but they were very cordial and hospitable and even gave me a free coffee and danish. I showed their whiz bangs a bunch of zig zag charts (for their bond funds and competitors) showing the radical swings in pricing. And they were as mystified as I was. Their consensus was that most of the swings seemed to occur after publication of the annual and semi-annual reports; that the public's expectations were totally out of line with the real world and that publication of the reports caused a "reality check", and after a few months folks went back to their old "beliefs", only to get pulled back yet again after the next published report.
So, I guess ... if the prices seem to drop unreasonably, buy some more. If the prices seem to demonstrate unreasonable exuberance, sell some.
OH, by the way, getting back to FolioFN, each account gets four free "watch lists". And you can play to your heart's content.
Oh, and in the real money accounts they have something like 13 different ways to buy and sell depending on what you want tax-wise [ FIFO, LIFO, FILO, LILO, FIDO, and DIFO. (I made up those last two). You can also buy and sell equal percentages, equal dollar amounts, individually tailored amounts, equal or differing allocations. And after you pick, you can then go in and customize any of the transactions. AND if you change your mind on a window transaction, you can go in and change it up until the 11am or 2pm windows. You can also trade instantly for free (up to a fixed number of transactions per month). They don't trade all stocks. No pink sheets or bulletin board stocks. Some they charge $2 to trade. But generally, you name it; they can do it. It's all done by computer, so it doesn't matter to them. Very difficult to accept how easy it is until you've fooled with it for a few months.
I'm trying to get AAII to work with them with the AAII various and sundry model portfolios.
At the end of the year you can download a variety of statements (you pick); if you don't have tax prep software, you can just print out the equivalent of a Schedule D continuation sheet, put your name and social security number on it and attach it to your 1040. Short term and long term gains, interest and dividends, foreign tax credits. Guaranteed to give any auditor a blinding Excedrin headache. But I mean like you give them ALL the detail. Every penny. You can print out long versions and short versions. My last long version was 46 pages.
My constant refrain to the Folio folks is that their system is fun; the problem is that it's REAL MONEY!
Books and authors. Jim O'Shaughnessy. all of his books. Amazing guy. The father of quant / mechanical investing. And he's still a young guy. "What works on Wall Street" is, I think, in its third incarnation. He started a bunch of mutual funds and sold them to Neal Hennessy (Hennessy Funds); they're called the Cornerstone funds. HFCGX, HFTFX, HENLX. Plus a few others.
- Al
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