Wachovia From Wire
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Does anyone have any thoughts on the Wachovia indy side? How does the platform compare to LPL or Ray-j? I have been told it is better if you manage your own stock portfolios. Ray-J and LPL are terrible for that type of business. That I know but I
don't know much about Wachovia. Does anyone have any experience with them? Good/Bad?I left the Wachovia platform a short while back. While some people may appreciate their platform, I found it difficult for my practice. My assistant was continually frustrated, the costs weren’t what I would have regarded as reasonable, and the technology platform was constantly in a state of flux. As much time as I spent there, I was not happy with their offerings, and have since opted to go the full RIA route. I went to Wach as an intermediate step, thinking I might have been happy with their platform. But, after a short while, I decided that it would have been best to take the full plunge and done the RIA thing.
They tried to pull the (in their best southern drawl…) ‘we are here to help you, and we’ll do anything’, schtick. It didn’t work - after their rampant merger and acquisition binge (and it’s still happening) I was left hanging as tech, and investments back into the firm dwindled. Tech-wise, their mutual fund trading platform was the worst I’ve ever seen, and my assistant was forced to use a black-screened DOS program to initiate client service requests. Our group used to kid that we’ve stepped back into time when beta-back office was introduced.
We couldn’t even process an exchange from a Vanguard fund to a Fidelity fund on a same day basis. You had to wait until the trade settled before you could do trade #2… it was pathetic.
I should have done my homework prior to joining. Just my thoughts. Keep looking. Fidelity and Schwab have trading platforms that are designed to conduct business properly and they don’t charge silly account fees either.
That’s not much of a problem.
If you look at both the Fidelity and Schwab platforms they allow you to place block trades, and allocate them to specific accounts. They also let you build model portfolios of equities in terms of percentages, and execute the trades simultaneously for all accounts. You certainly DO NOT have to place trades for an individual account, and then move on to the other client accounts to do the same thing. You do it all at one time. You can specify minimum share trades, minimum trade $$'s and lots of other criteria.
Again, head to Fidelity or Schwab. They let you keep 100% of your fees, and have a far superior trading platform. Wachovia is the last place I’d go.