Mostly consist of Exchange-Traded Funds (ETF) and Mutual Funds. Individual stocks I do own were purchased many, many years ago from my previous stockbroker's recommendation. I now don't like to buy individual stocks because of the risk. Tried to diversify-mostly large cap (growth and value) mutual funds and etf's. Portfolio did very well over the years, except recently (end of July and beg of August) when the stock market was very volatile. I was especially disappointed with my hotchkis and wiley mid-cap fund which dipped 9% in July and 4% in August, both months were way below the benchmark, Russell MidCap Value.
Mutual Funds - most are low fees except the Hotchkis and Wiley Fund
Dodge and Cox Balanced (dodbx-closed to new investors)
Dodge and Cox International Fund (dodfx)
Hotchkis and Wiley Mid-Cap Value (hwmix, hwmax, hwmcx, hwmrx-closed to new investors) - has high fees
T Rowe Growth stock (prgfx)
Vanguard Total stock market (vtsmx)
Vanguard index 500 (vfinx)
Vanguard index growth (vigrx)
Fidelity Balanced (fbalx) -
Fidelity Contrafund (fcntx) -
Fidelty Spartan 500 (fsmkx) -
ETF's - generally low fees
ishares S&P500 ETF (IVV)
ishares Dow Jones select dividend (DVY)
ishares S&P mid-cap 400 (IJH)
ishares S&P 500 (IVV)
Individual Stocks
Altria
Kraft (from spinoff of Altria)
IBM
GE
Ebay-hadn't performaned too well since my purchase
AIG
Raytheon (RTN)-hadn't performed too well since my purchase
I have had a Scotrrade account for the last 4 years. Scottrade has a good selection of mutual funds and low commission costs. The only thing that I don't like about Scottrade the low money market interest rate it pays for cash in your account while many other brokerage accounts are paying currently 5% on money market accounts. With scottrade, you have to have $1,000,000 to get 5% interest.
Scottrade Commission:
Stocks
Online Trading Over Internet (Market and Limit Orders ) $7
Mutual Funds
No-Load, No-Transaction Fee(NTF) Funds - no fee to buy, no fee to sell
No-Load Funds(not in NTF program) - $17 to buy, $17 to sell
Load Funds- No fee to buy, $17 to sell
Interest Rate(Annual Percentage Yield) Scottrade Pays on Cash in your account (as of 9/10/07):
0.01-4999.99: 0.50%
5000-9999.99: 1.25%
10000-24999: 3.00%
25000-99999: 3.50%
100000-249999: 3.75%
250000-499999: 4.00%
500000-999999: 4.50%
1000000 and over: 5:00%
