Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire No load mutual funds?

Where's the best place to set up an IRA that has no load mutual funds? We have a few different IRA's, one of which is at Edward Jones that my wife had there when we got married. They are constant trying to get my IRAs too but I don't want to pay their 5.75% commission on mutual funds. My wife has already paid it so we don't mind hers staying there.

Much of mine used to be with my employers 401k and was there for 13 years. I'm free to put it in an IRA anywhere I want now. Where would you recommend?

Bb

Vanguard and Fidelity would be good choices.

Stated: I am a financial nincompoop. However after several tries I have landed at Stifel Nicolaus and am very pleased. They are a true fiduciary. They do offer no-load funds, but they are seldom the cheapest per transaction. You did not really state whether you were looking for a broker or an investment tip.
I got out of "retirement plans", IRA and Roth, when I came of age, to get away from government rules. No mutuals ever again. With Stifel's help and easy online research, I manage my own account with a mix of bonds, equities, and preferreds. My goals were security, income and principle maintenance. 33% muni bonds, 66% equities and preferreds. I weathered the 2008 debacle nicely. You may want to look into it, ask lots of questions,your tax situation will dictate your best path.

Focus on “net” not just the load or transaction cost. You might make more money, if you pay a load or some transaction costs. Or you might not.
But just looking at no load mutual funds is likely restricting your opportunity.

Seconded. Add Janus to that group.

If you are eligible USAA has a god deal. You can set up a mix of mutual funds, etf's, and stocks. The mutual funds are no load and the commission on stock trades isn't much. Edward Jones is expensive.

I messed around with my investments for over thirty years. Two years ago I turned everything over to Edward Jones and haven’t looked back.

Schwab.

You can trade ETF's with zero commission.

And one more for these two

? Dave Ramsey has talked against ETFs, what is the downside? Isn't QQQ an ETF? GDX? They sort of seem like specialized mutual funds in a way.

Just buy the Vanguard Index 500 fund. No load and probably the lowest fees. Index funds have the lowest fees because there is no need to "manage"them. Over a 10 or 20 year period, it's been hard to beat. them for appreciation. Why pay a 1.0% or 2.0% annual fee when you can pay 0.16% or something and get getter appreciation? And front end loads are for suckers.

No need to look further than these two brokers. Both sell all different kinds of funds. Someone mentioned Janus funds. Janus was one of my best performing mutual funds when I had a 401K with Fidelity.

Vanguard and Fidelity.

Heck, Fidelity even has a couple of index funds now that are literally zero fees for anything ever. But I trust Vanguard as a company moreso because of how they are organized.

Another vote for Fidelity or Vanguard. One advantage that Fidelity has for some people is that they have offices where you can talk face to face with someone if you like that. Vanguard is all over the phone, I believe.

I use both Schwab and Fidelity. I have a self directed 401K and QRP, a Roth IRA, and a regular account with Schwab and a regular account with Fidelity. Schwab is a lot easier to use when making trades and is very easy to see all your accounts and to move around on the site.

Earlier this month Schwab dropped their trading fees to zero and the others brokers followed suit.
So you can buy or sell 1 or 10,000 shares of AAPL [apple] or FB [facebook] for under a dollar.

You can buy/sell stocks, ETFs,mutual funds,bonds,or CD's all in one account. Schwab also has managed accounts for those who don't want to do it themselves.

I've switched my mutual funds to ETFs because you can buy or sell anytime during the day when the market is open. Mutual funds only buy/sell at the end of the day and make you hold them for a set period of time or you get charged a % fee.

Think of an ETF as a mutual fund you trade like a stock. No waiting until the end of the day for the NAV, it's priced like any other stock and bought and sold with market, limit and stop orders because it trades like a stock.

Yes QQQ and GLD are ETF's. SPY represents the S&P 500.

You're hard pressed to do better than Vanguard and particularly VTSAX.
https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/profile/vtsax

For a do-it-all fund, I like the Fidelity Four In One Fund. It's a fund of 4 funds. It's 48% 500 Index, 12% Extended Market Index, 25% International Index and 15% US Bond Index.

This.

I am a USAA member. I had narrowed it down to Fidelity, Vanguard, or USAA. USAA seems a bit more limited but they've always been good to deal with banking and insurance wise.

I'm interested in ETFs as well. I used to actively manage my own stuff but I parked it all in early 2008 before the crash and when I got back in a few years later I just left it middle of the road risk fund with my 401k. I've forgotten a lot in 12 years of not managing things myself.

I put most of my extra cash into rental homes from 2011-2016 but I'm no longer doing much of that.

Bb