[l2ridehd]

Banks have an investment group as a sideline to their core business. Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab, and a few others, investment is their core business. Each one has some good points, but all are solid companies to work with. Vanguard is lower cost on almost all their mutual funds, Fidelity has more products, and Schwab specializes in low cost stock and option trading and trading products. I use all three because I like different features of each. Where I do most of my investment management myself, I tend to use Schwab the most, but have some specific funds at both the others.

I personally would never work through a bank for these things. The fees are higher the products more limited and their advice questionable. I am sure we will now get the 100 exceptions to that statement, and a bank may be a good option for a limited set of risk adverse investors, but you can do much better elsewhere.