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Merrill Lynch 2010 review: brand name brokerage house with highest commissions in the industry
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Merrill Lynch Commissions and Investments
- Stocks and ETFs: $29.95 for limit orders; $14 market orders
- Options: expensive with complicated structure
click here to see it
- Investment products: stocks, bonds, mutual funds, options, bills, notes, munis, CDs, corporate bonds, ETFs,
annuities
- Minimum to open account: $2,000
New MerrillLynch.com customer account management website has a very clean look, is very well designed and
easy to navigate. You could find what you are looking for within 2-3 clicks.
- Many investment products
- Participation in IPOs, if you have 100K account balance (not guaranteed)
- Free checking account
- Free Visa debit card
- 600 offices nationwide
- Highest commissions of all stock brokers
- Additional $0.03 per share for orders of over 1,000 shares
- Account maintenance fee: $25/quarter (waived if 25K balance or make 2 trades in 6 months)
- Annual custodial fee of $50 for IRA and ROTH IRA accounts (waived if $20,000 in assets at Merrill Lynch)
- Mutual fund Short-Term redemption fee if held less than 180 days: $50-$250
- Optional Exchange Fee: $30. Mandatory Exchange Fee: $50
Merrill Lynch (ML) is one of the best known
online brokerage firms and is now owned by Bank of America. Firm's clients are
mostly wealthy individuals and they pay dearly to have an account with ML.
Merrill Lynch charges a lot of fees that most other discount stock brokers don't have. Trading commissions are
the highest of all brokerage firms. Even if one has millions of dollars and trades tens of thousands of shares,
we don't see a good reason to pay $30 or more in trading commissions when other brokerage houses charge $3-$7
for the same trades.
The old argument that Merrill Lynch is good for high net worth people who don't want to manage their own money
and let Merrill Lynch do it for them, doesn't stand anymore. If Merrill Lynch can't even manage their own money why would you
let them manage yours?
We can't recommend Merrill Lynch. There are many other
Brokerage Houses that offer safe,
reliable services at the fraction of the cost at ML.
Merrill Lynch Promotional Code: none right now
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