re: Edward Jones vs Northwestern Mutual vs Fidelity

EJ uses business model of getting retail customer’s family and friends and taking a chunk of their value from them in form of fees, preying on their financial illiteracy.

I think they represent different parts of the marketplace.

EJ has a lot of lower wealth people who probably could do it themselves, but they want professional help. The individual fees are low but they are many of them that tend to add up over time. They nickel and dime you a lot. I consider EJ the H&R Block of investment firms.

Fidelity has a lot of do it yourself people, but also has a decent network of advisors (both in house and a lot of third party advisors use their platform).

NM is a life insurance company who also has an investment arm that sells a lot of propritary funds.

VANGUARD,Blackrock and State Street substantially support the World Economic Forum.
These funds are also behind the “social credit” and ESG left wing movements among corporate America to force businesses into left wing economic and cultural compliance.

I’m hoping Schwab and Fidelity aren’t into this also,I’m going to do some digging to try and find out.I have my IRA’s ,investments between these 2.

As far as Edward Jones,they are trash.
My uncle died and left his widow substantial assets with Edward Jones. Her mind started going,her son from prior marriage got POA and looked into her account.He found the “advisor” was churning her account and had her into all kinds of stocks an 86 y.o . woman had no business being invested in

I always enjoy these threads.

I personally use vanguard, and I need to switch. The mobile trading and especially options trading has horrendous UI.

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My only experience with EJ was chronicled here on the board 10 years ago ha, when I was a young person and just dipping a toe in the water of investing I was contributing some extra money each money into a Roth IRA with EJ. After 2 yeras, the account only had $11 more in it than the day I started. It was so long ago that I don't recall exactly why it had basically zero gain but that was enough for me to know that somethihg wasn't right. I took it all out and put it Vanguard and have never looked back.

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Insert firm name here sucks because I made $11 over 2 years is the most useless criticism in this thread.

If you put $5000 into VTI through Fidelity 1 year ago and 2 years ago, you’d be down $63. Do Fidelity and Vanguard both suck now?

Interesting thoughts.

Like OP, I'm also interesting in opening a brokerage account, but I'm also looking for advice/guidance in the meantime. I have a 401(k) from an old employer that I'd like to start with, and eventually open a brokerage account in a few months.

Have been meeting with someone from NW, who has encouraged me to go with one of their products for the 401(k) rollover. I'll look at that information soon, but I've also heard Charles Schwab is great if you want to do it on your own. I'll also check out Fidelity as it seems to receive good reviews in this thread.

He said it was so he could be more flexible about trading my stocks. Then a few days later I heard about this ESG stuff & it made me wonder. And full disclosure, I’ll admit up from, I am NOT a smart person so my understanding of things is not great.

I’m not that terribly smart either when it comes to investing.Best thing for most people is to get an account with Schwab or Fidelity and put your money in index funds.
Mutual funds are graded against the S&P 500 index.These are managed by guys with lots of financial education and information that few are privy to and in any given year only about 20% beat the S&P 500.Thing is,it’s not usually the same 20 % each year.
No less than Warren Buffett recommends index funds for the average investor.

Keep investing consistently to dollar cost average and don’t panic when the market takes a dump.2008-2009 bunch of co-workers cashed in their 401-k’s,took the loss and had to pay penalties to the IRS.I kept my contribution going with no change and it paid off well for me.

I’ve dabbled with individual stocks over the years.I did well with some but made a lot of mistakes like not buying enough of stocks that did well,holding on to duds too long,selling some winners to soon.

I have often contemplated trying option investing but it’s complicated with my pea-brain.