Brokerage Account Opened!

I went ahead today and opened a brokerage account.  I did a bit of online research into a few brokerages and ultimately decided to go with Vanguard.  My understanding is that Vanguard may not have the best research tools which is really unfortunate.  However, its mutual funds and ETFs are fee-free and while I do intend to purchase individual stocks, I'll also toss some change into the former as well.  The trading fees at Vanguard are $7/trade which is about what I was looking at with other brokerages.  However, I do have my retirement accounts at Vanguard so the hope is that eventually, my cost-to-trade will be lower due to the fact that Vanguard aggregates all your account balances before deciding what it will charge you.

I had a teeny-tiny bit of money invested with another brokerage so I have requested that it be transferred to the Vanguard brokerage.  (Always good to have all your accounts in one place!)  That could take up to 10 business days to be finalized.  That's about when I will get my next paycheck so the time frame works for me.

Also, I moved a few non-retirement mutual funds that I had in a separate account at Vanguard to the brokerage account.  Again my thinking is that it is just easier to have it all in one account.  These accounts have a balance of about $35K - built up over several years.  But that balance doesn't count in my brokerage account goal of investing $100,000.  (Nor does the previously mentioned transfer.)  It's only new money that counts.

So expect buying of stocks, ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds), and mutual funds to begin in a couple of weeks.  It will be very small trades but they will happen nonetheless.

Pru