I have been reading seemingly endless reviews of brokerage options, as I get ready to consolidate all of our various IRAs, stock option accounts, 401ks, and experimenting-with-investing accounts.

Right now, I have accounts with: Wachovia Securities, Fidelity, E*Trade, and BuyAndHold. Plus Earthlink uses Putnam for their 401(k), so as of my next paycheck, I will have accounts in five brokerage houses. That’s at least 3 too many. (It might be 4 too many, but I’m stuck with Putnam.)

I opened the accounts at Wachovia when I first started working for Leslie Harris & Associates, because I had no idea what I was doing and found a Smith alumna who was a financial advisor in DC. But commissions are high, and having spent a couple of years in an investment club and learning more about stock and mutual fund investing, I’m not sure it’s still the right fit.

It was out of that frustration that I tried the BuyAndHold account, but frankly, I’m finding them frustrating too. The trades are often slow, past the window I expected; the UI is confusing and I don’t think the 2-trades-included/monthly fee of $6.99 *actually* works for me.

E*Trade is what I chose for my AOL stock options and Employee Stock Purchase Plan stocks, because it had low fees. But somehow the account wound up in a wierd hybrid of Jill’s and my names. Which seemed like the wrong way to treat my stock options. Also, they don’t seem to have much in the way of research and planning tools. Probably what I should do is sell my tiny quantity of TWX stocks and close the account.

So far, Putnam is off to a rocky start with me. Part of it may be Earthlink’s responsibility, but I think it’s mostly Putnam. I became 401k eligible on Wednesday and hadn’t gotten any paperwork that would let me log into their web site. It turns out you have to call and ask them to send it to you, but the only way to get that information is to call and tell someone you don’t have it and you want it.

The other concern I had is that the person I spoke to couldn’t answer my question and didn’t call me back with the answer. One of my 401k options is a "non-public" mutual fund that tracks the S&P 500 index. The other Putnam funds open to me all had really high expense ratios — all but one greater than 1.00, and that one was 0.99. I wanted to know what the expense ratio was for the index fund.

Customer Service Guy #1 did not know, and said he’d call me back with the info. Customer Service Chick #2 told me that the policy was to call back within 48 hours and it had only been 6; she looked and the question had not yet been answered by their researchers. Customer Service Guy #3, who I called about 54 hours after my original call, looked up the answer and told me right away.

Happily, the answer was .25, which acceptable to me. There are better ratios for index funds — Vanguard’s S&P 500 Index fund has a ratio of .18, and Fidelity recently lowered theirs to .10 — but Putnam’s is at the industry average for index funds and well below my other options in my new 401k.

It makes me nervous that the fund isn’t publicly traded. I don’t know if that means anything or not — I’ve never heard of it before. What does that make the fund WORTH? How will I track how it’s doing?

On the other hand, I’m not wild about the other 2 investment options I consider acceptable in my new universe of 401k choices. Both are American Funds, one of which is in Jill’s Wachovia IRA (purchased on Sharon’s recommendation): AGTHX, expense ratio of .70, and AEPGX, expense ratio of .87. The first one is fairly straightforward and has a good track record and reputation, but we already own a lot of it. The second is a EuroPacific growth fund, and although it has a good reputation and track record, that’s a much higher risk type of fund.

Where has that left me? Not maxing out my 401k. Participating, and at a respectable level, but not where I was in my last job and not with the same level of enthusiasm.

Of the companies I’ve used, Fidelity is far and again the best. They have cool financial planning calendars, easy to use 401k tools, and a nice intuitive UI. On the down side,  they don’t have as much research stuff available as I would like, I think it’s strange that my unvested AOL matches still appear to be in my 401k, and their fees aren’t that low.

Part of my satisfaction may have been superior options for my investments. Over the 2 years I was with AOL, I invested in a total of 4 mutual funds. Two of them, including my very largest holding, made the National Association of Individual Investors top ten mutual funds list. DODGX and FLPSX and were both given 5-stars by Morningstar; of my new options, only the EuroPacific sector fund got 5 stars from Morningstar.

The other candidate for transfering the accounts is Scottrade. The commissions are very low, they got good reviews, and they offer good research tools like ValueLine to customers. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to visit one of their offices in the next 2 weeks, and then be able to make a choice between Scottrade and Fidelity.

Other review sites and comments:
http://www.consumersearch.com/www/personal_finance/online_brokers/reviews.html
http://www.businessweek.com/@@gy0IoYYQqxQlphkA/magazine/content/04_20/b3883121_mz070.htm
http://www.smartmoney.com/ontheagenda/index.cfm?story=20040823
http://forums.kiplinger.com/showthread.php?t=2221
http://www.forbes.com/bow/b2c/category.jhtml?id=5