Good Question
1. We seldom make purchases or sell positions. Fees are less of a concern when holding a company for years while it appreciates.
2. We have our accounts set to NOT allow any online transactions. All transactions must be verified personally via a phone call. While I love and participate in the online economy, I don’t trust the system when it comes to now AI enabled hackers. This month’s issue of Wired quotes a coder saying he is now doing 90X lines of code per year compared to his pre-AI enabled lines of coding.
3. They give us best costs for transactions because they manage the front end of our company’s 401K plan and dealing with our mostly non/sophisticated investment-wise employees. The back end (record keeping) is handled by a firm specializing in filing 401K plans stuff to the various parties.
4. We don’t have an issue with them making some money when we do have transactions. It goes along the lines of Will Roger’s “return of my money” quote. I can physically grab somebody’s attention in the event it is needed by going to their office versus dealing through channels should things go awry in the world.

I considered Schwab and Fidelity then decided to stay with the status quo.


Again, thanks for posing this question to a coffee can type of investor.

Uwharrie