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FYI - you will not have a good time buying and selling stocks onesie-twosie when it comes time to filling out your tax return. If you want to avoid commissio

FYI - you will not have a good time buying and selling stocks onesie-twosie when it comes time to filling out your tax return. If you want to avoid commissions, Schwab & Fidelity have commission free ETF's - just buy and hold.

sushid 10y ago
True, but only if you don't use Turbo Tax. My first year after graduating (and dabbling in stocks/ETFs) I had a painful time filling it out manually on H&R Block. Last year, Robinhood's integration made it so easy that I was both simultaneously pissed that I'm pretty much locked into Turbo Tax and amazed that it's so nice with all its integrations (e.g. also works on Lending Club, Wealthfront, etc).
- prostoalex 10y ago
  Did H&R Block software not support your specific brokerage? Pulling in consolidated 1099s from major brokerage houses seems to be a relatively well-solved problem in tax prep world.
  - Jach 10y ago
    I had an inherited Edward Jones account and brought my many paged paper copy to a local H&R block, it baffled the employee for a bit but he eventually figured it out and did a lot of manual things. Used Turbotax this year and it slurped my Vanguard data without issue. They also support EJ so I bet if I still had that it would be much more straightforward.
  - sushid 10y ago
    A bit late, but no. I don't recall if I had Interactive Brokers at the time, but it didn't support Wealthfront or Robinhood.
deleted 10y ago
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- greenyoda 10y ago
  Alternatively, you can invest in an old-fashioned index fund from Vanguard instead of an ETF and make small purchases without a fee (you can even set up recurring transfers from your bank account). This kind of investing is nothing new - it's been possible for decades.
Veratyr 10y ago
Also FYI, TurboTax supports many of the major brokers, which makes this super easy: https://www.partner.turbotax.com/top_partner_list.html https://www.partner.turbotax.com/top_partner_list.html Included are Robinhood, Schwab, Fidelity and TD Ameritrade among others.
astrange 10y ago
If you use Turbotax etc. everything just works perfectly. My only problem doing taxes has been using a robo-advisor called Hedgeable which sometimes decides to buy and sell GLD and bitcoin for you. Turbotax will not help you with non covered securities! (Hedgeable's pretty good, by the way. By far the more moral out of the two companies I just advertised.)
patio11 10y ago
FYI - you will not have a good time buying and selling stocks onesie-twosie when it comes time to filling out your tax return This used to be true, but these days your brokerage has to do all the hard work for you (like calculating basis). They send you a 1099-B; you copy numbers. It's almost exactly as much work if you make one trade a year on your birthday or daytrade across ~100 stocks.
matwood 10y ago
> If you want to avoid commissions, Schwab & Fidelity have commission free ETF's - just buy and hold. Most of the brokers do this now. Also, Schwab just lowered stock trade commissions to $4.95. Not to sound like a shill, but Schwab bank also has zero fees (no ATM fees, no foreign transaction fees, etc...) if you open (don't even need to fund) a companion brokerage account. I think companies like Vanguard have pushed down expense ratios and now the likes of Robinhood have pushed down trade costs through competition.

sushid 10y ago

True, but only if you don't use Turbo Tax. My first year after graduating (and dabbling in stocks/ETFs) I had a painful time filling it out manually on H&R Block. Last year, Robinhood's integration made it so easy that I was both simultaneously pissed that I'm pretty much locked into Turbo Tax and amazed that it's so nice with all its integrations (e.g. also works on Lending Club, Wealthfront, etc).

prostoalex 10y ago
Did H&R Block software not support your specific brokerage? Pulling in consolidated 1099s from major brokerage houses seems to be a relatively well-solved problem in tax prep world.
- Jach 10y ago
  I had an inherited Edward Jones account and brought my many paged paper copy to a local H&R block, it baffled the employee for a bit but he eventually figured it out and did a lot of manual things. Used Turbotax this year and it slurped my Vanguard data without issue. They also support EJ so I bet if I still had that it would be much more straightforward.
- sushid 10y ago
  A bit late, but no. I don't recall if I had Interactive Brokers at the time, but it didn't support Wealthfront or Robinhood.

deleted 10y ago

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greenyoda 10y ago
Alternatively, you can invest in an old-fashioned index fund from Vanguard instead of an ETF and make small purchases without a fee (you can even set up recurring transfers from your bank account). This kind of investing is nothing new - it's been possible for decades.

Veratyr 10y ago

Also FYI, TurboTax supports many of the major brokers, which makes this super easy: https://www.partner.turbotax.com/top_partner_list.html https://www.partner.turbotax.com/top_partner_list.html Included are Robinhood, Schwab, Fidelity and TD Ameritrade among others.

astrange 10y ago

If you use Turbotax etc. everything just works perfectly. My only problem doing taxes has been using a robo-advisor called Hedgeable which sometimes decides to buy and sell GLD and bitcoin for you. Turbotax will not help you with non covered securities! (Hedgeable's pretty good, by the way. By far the more moral out of the two companies I just advertised.)

patio11 10y ago

FYI - you will not have a good time buying and selling stocks onesie-twosie when it comes time to filling out your tax return This used to be true, but these days your brokerage has to do all the hard work for you (like calculating basis). They send you a 1099-B; you copy numbers. It's almost exactly as much work if you make one trade a year on your birthday or daytrade across ~100 stocks.

matwood 10y ago

> If you want to avoid commissions, Schwab & Fidelity have commission free ETF's - just buy and hold. Most of the brokers do this now. Also, Schwab just lowered stock trade commissions to $4.95. Not to sound like a shill, but Schwab bank also has zero fees (no ATM fees, no foreign transaction fees, etc...) if you open (don't even need to fund) a companion brokerage account. I think companies like Vanguard have pushed down expense ratios and now the likes of Robinhood have pushed down trade costs through competition.