There are three major discount brokerages; Schwab, Fidelity, and Vanguard. All three have have rock bottom fees and expense ratios which is the most important part. In this post, I will discuss, compare, and contrast each company.
Charles Schwab was the first discount brokerage I used. Schwab is publicly owned, has low prices, and mostly great customer service. I have had some issues with my wife rolling over an IRA previously, Where Schwab excels is in their user interface platform. In my experience it is the most intuitive. Another benefit of having a Schwab Brokerage is having access to Schwab Bank. I lived overseas in Korea and Schwab Bank has free ATM withdrawals and excellent exchange rates. This made Schwab Bank exellent to use internationally. Overall I feel Schwab is the best company to use for most people.
Another great company is Fidelity. Fidelity is privately owned and generally is a great company to work with. They have low prices and fees and amazing customer service. One place they are lacking is their online platform. I had a 401k with them and changing what I was invested in was never very intuitive. Due to mostly their lackluster interface I rank Fidelity second best, but I don’t hesitate to use them if they have a feature that is better than Schwab.
The last company is Vanguard. Vanguard has a unique organization where the owners of funds are the owners of the company. This means that the company’s goals and your goals are aligned. Vanguard also invented the index fund and has a great variety of index funds. Jack Bogle was the founder of Vanguard and the “Boglehead” philosophy is what I most closely identify as.
However, Vanguard is known for having a less intuitive interface and worse customer service than the other two companies. I actually own Vanguard’s VIOV ETF through my Schwab brokerage. Through this tactic I am able to get more variety of funds with arguably better customer service.
Millionaire Librarian 