Which broker to set up rolled over 401k in?

As mentioned in the Careers forum, I’m changing jobs, and trying to decide where I want to set up my new rollover IRA.

I have my Roth IRA with Scottrade and probably my favorite feature is their automated flexible reinvestment feature which essentially pools the dividends you receive and buys shares of whatever you tell it to buy commission free. A handy feature for my IRA since I won’t be putting new funds in it and don’t want to have to pay $7 to buy a few shares of something 4 times a year.

The other one I’m considering is Merrill Edge because I’d have a high enough balance that it would give me up to 30 free trades a month, also I could take advantage of their offer that would give me $100 for rolling over $X. Also would get me to a higher account tier with BoA/ML.

Anybody use Merrill Edge or have any other broker suggestions?

What are you planning to do? If you’re pretty vanilla, then do Scottrade, even if you’re active it’s fine if you don’t want to get too exotic. If you want to buy foreign stocks, Fidelity is probably better.

^ looking to stay pretty basic, likely initially setting it up buying a few ETFs and just making sure nothing goes too awry.

I’ve always been happy with Scottrade. Easy and cheap. (Insert mom joke here)

i have it with thinkorswim (now scottrade) and very happy with their services. Very fast replies and no bs account managers

You can’t go wrong with scottrade for stock investing but just so you’re aware they do not allow you to diversfy outside of the stock markets. They don’t allow you to use your IRA to invest in real tangiable investments like gold or real estate. You can do that with a self-directed IRA but not every broker allows for it simply because they don’t make nearly the same amount as they would through stocks, mutal funds, etc. It may or may not be something that you want to check out. Either way it is a great option for truly diversifying your retirement accounts.

^When it comes to retirement accounts, no matter how smart we think we are that’s probably a good thing to keep it as simple as possible.

I’ve been using Sharebuilder (Capital One) for the last year and a half and have been very happy. They also have the reinvestment feature you mentioned that’s like clockwork.

Anything change on this stuff in the last 1.5 years? Looking at a possible career move and would be rolling my 401k into an IRA somewhere. Have used TD Ameritrade before and would likely be using their commission free ETF’s but figured I would see if I am missing out on anything crazy anywhere. Seems like most places offer basically the same things

whoops

order of my preference for iras.

if you have at least 500k, vanguard is best

if you have at least 100k but less than 500k, ibkr is best.

otherwise it depends on what you buy/sell and how often.

comission free etfs - vanguard, td ameritrade, fidelity

indiv stocks - optionshouse, fidelity, vanguard

options - ibkr, optionshouse

optionshouse got bought out by etrade but will still charge 4.95/trade

im thinnking if i should move over my account to TD or keep with OH/Etrade