[TomW]

I really like Scottrade. Easy to move money in and out of the accounts and very easy to set up trades, stops, etc. Friendly and helpful folks at the local office and on the phone. Also like the $7 per trade.

[inda50]

I have been using Etrade for several years and have been satisfied.

[Boomer]

Today I was sitting around reading the new issue of Smart Money that had just arrived in the mail. Mr. Boomer walked into the room and he said, "Hey. Look at that ad on the back cover. That sounds like something you would say about investment advice."

And I looked. And in big black print, the ad said, "No one has more vested interest in you than you." And it was an ad for Scottrade.

I had not seen that ad when we signed up for Scottrade a while back. Like I said, we chose Scottrade because Mr. Boomer liked the helicopter in the ads. Seems like there are lots of good online trading things out there.

Boomer

[TrudyM]

I was just reminded by my family that I haven't gotten my losses for this year. What they mean is I take a stock thats down that I own and buy more. Wait 31 days or longer (for tax reasons to avoid a wash sale you have to wait 30 days I always make it 31 just to be safe.) and then sell it (hopefully its gone up a little.) Under the first in first out tax rule the stock I sold was not the new stock but the old one so even if I made a little I booked a loss for my taxes. So now I can take $3000 of against ordinary income. My husband still works so we have mostly that. But even if we didn't lowering the tax basis on my stock and pushing any gain to the future is only good. I should have done it three months ago before things started to rally. I'm sure this is old hat to you guys but I thought you might be having so much fun that you like I had forgotten to act for 2009 before everything rallies. I am being very positive. They will go up. They will. Please of Please.

[Boomer]

This is an old thread. I just decided to open it and have a look at a little econ history TOTV-style. We are mostly of an age here and so we have seen the ins and outs and maybe the back-ins again (I very, very cautiously hope) of the economy.

I sure wish I had bought a lot more of that Kraft buy that was my first online trade ever. Mac and cheese is still in I guess. Percentage-wise my little buy is doing well. I based my decision on basically nothing other than the stock made sense to me. Just wish I had had enough sense to buy a whole lot more of KFT.

I remain quite conservative. And I remain a DIYer. A while back, I started viewing even mutual funds as too much management under somebody else -- sort of. And even no-loads have their share of associated fees, though not like load funds. I had bailed on Fidelity Contrafund at the time. And then I watched Contra go really sky high and I beat myself up a little for having gotten out. But then it just turned into, et tu, Will Danoff. Geez. Shouldn't one of the hottest fund managers in the universe at the time have had a clue? Yes. His numbers are better now, of course. But it is the percentage of what that counts. Maybe it is that those successful funds get so big that they just cannot move far without moving the markets they are moving from. Who knows? I sure don't. I have enough to worry about just trying to manage the tiny little Boomerfund. (I do sincerely promise all of you that I will never, ever move the market. That you can count on.)

My latest project is to try to learn more about ETF's. I like the fact that they are more nimble for the investor than regular mutual funds. But I really do not know a whole lot about them. And my risk tolerance is pretty low, now that I am in my dotage -- or whatever this boomer thing is now. I am still out here with the rest of 'em, slouching toward Medicare. (Sometimes I think about buying Stryker, but I have not looked at it lately.)

I found this article in the recent AARP magazine. (Yeah. I still read it. When it comes in the mail I always read it in the hottub. The articles are so short that I usually can finish any of them I want to read by the time the magazine is too splashed up.)

This little article I am linking here is about people who took awful financial hits at the hands of those they trusted and who purposely deceived them. It's not just the Madoffs. It's the mini-Madoffs, too.

Here's the link:

http://www.aarpmagazine.org/money/ba...the_brink.html

Boomer

[daxbr]

Hello Mr. Boomer. I am the coffee guy you mentioned in the opening post and like you, I have one client too. Couple hours in the morning and an hour in the afternoon keeps me entertained. I use Interactive Brokers.

[jimmer]

Does anybody know when Scottrade office in Pinellas will open?

[BarryRX]

I use Fidelity because I have some money in a managed account with them but other money in a brokerage account with them. It costs me $7.95 per trade. My strategy has been to research companies that have a 20 year history of raising dividends. By going back 20 years, I can see which companies got through the tech bubble bursting in the 90's and the scary crash of 2008 without cutting a dividend. By investing in these companies, my net worth may go up or down on paper in any given month, but my income is always increasing, and that's real money!

[BS Beef]

I like Scottrade for their online education. They also offer on site education sessions but I've never attended in person.