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Originally Posted by NovaJ
First time I have posted in this thread, but have been trying to follow it and have certainly learned a lot.
I have decided that it is time to start doing more than just my company 401k stuff and am therefore looking at the online brokerages available. I think I have basically narrowed it down to Scottrade and Schwab. I like Scottrade because they have the option of an actual office fairly close to me, while Schwab's office that is also in the same area is listed that it is "Open by appointment only" which seems potentially inconvenient.
The one thing keeping me from pulling the trigger and going with Scottrade is I am not so sure about the FRIP (Flexible Reinvestment Program) that Scottrade uses. For those who might not be familiar, the FRIP pools your dividends into one sum and then buys stocks based on how you have set the pool to be allocated to investments which does not necessarily have to be buying the stock that generated the dividend. It does seem nice to have the option to use your dividends on things other than what paid you the dividend, however, the fact that you can only buy whole shares with the FRIP seems like it might be restrictive, especially in the beginning since I will be working with a relatively small account (hopefully not for too long though, right).
Any thoughts on this type of system? Or even other reasons why you chose the firm you're using vs. the others?
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I really like the FRIP system, sure I have $10 in there every now and then doing nothing until the next pay date but im not too worried about that. Ive been taking my dividends and buying shares of one particular company to "even out" my cash amount so I close to the same dollar amount invested in each company. So far no complaints with scottrade and ive been using them for a few years.