About John A. White III Expertise I can answer general investing questions including stock analysis, market analysis, domestic stocks only, investment planning, porfolio analysis and company opinions
Question Hello,
Thank you first of all for taking my question.
I have some money that I have set aside that I wanted to invest for the long term(10 yrs), in an us stock index fund. I am debating weather or not I should open an account with a no-load family such as Vanguard or simply buy such a no-load index fund through my bank, which I have all my accounts (checking, saving, credit card etc) with. The reason I have been considering buying mutual funds through my bank's brokerage is simply because I like to keep things simple and not have accounts scattered here and there.
However, I do not know the pros and cons of this and I'm not sure if I'd be better off investing directly through the mutual fund company. I would like your opinion on this.
Thank you,
atam
Answer As long as the bank or the mutual fund company is sound the most important thing when buying an index fund is the fees the fund charges yearly to invest in it. there are no load and load funds but every mutual fund charges yearly operating fees usually a percentage of the assets under management. For an index fund the fees should be as low as possible probably less than 1% or .75%. I would also make sure that you can in the future switch the money to a different kind of fund if you desire. Most banks also represent outside mutual fund companies so you may not be limited to bank sponsered funds. As far as keeping things simple unless the bank has one statement for all accounts you will be getting multiple statements no matter what you do. If you have more specific questions I will be glad to help.
