What Platform and What Direction (Thoughts)

Investing Education Portfolio Management
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Hi everyone. I know I have to make the decision myself here, but I was curious if anyone had any input. I’ve always saved the majority of my $ (yeah people call me cheap, lol) Kind of like that meme…“No, I don’t want to buy a new shirt because that would be 1 share of x”. I’m not that bad honestly.

With that said, I have quite a bit of $ invested into stocks via Webull. The fact Webull is also offering 5% interest on remaining cash, I’ve been depositing additional money to just sit there as well. This is a significant account for me, obviously.

My ‘life savings’ is with my bank invested into a CD, which is ending in March. My original plan was to take that money and invest it into a Vanguard account with mixed stock and bond funds. Was trying to decide if I’d have a fund manager and pay the fee or not but now that’s not really the big issue.

Now, I’m wondering if that would be the best move.

I could also transfer all that money into my Webull account and draw 5% interest for the time being, or I could even buy the same index funds in Webull like I would be doing in Vanguard.

I ultimately expected the S&P 500 to drop in 2023, thus it would be a good time to invest that direction this year, but obviously that wasn’t the case. The S&P is near a record, or was just a few days ago.

So between my stock/extra cash account and my “savings”, I’m trying to determine if I should house my savings into something else or just drag everything into Webull. I read historically Vanguard has the lowest fees, which is why I figured I’d head into that direction.

Any thoughts, recommendations, things I should think about? Hardly seems like a bad idea to just transfer everything over to Webull and get 5% daily interest right now. I also don’t want to be left behind in the dust in terms of the market either though…and which source I’d use for the market investments… I guess that’s really my main question.

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jbp82.

Nope. 5% is a bad idea, especially if you live in a state with income taxes. Instead, do this. Roll T-Bill ladders with your idle cash.

Also, WeBull’s platform isn’t the easist to trade from. You should demo what other brokers offer.

Charlie

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That’s a good point regarding the taxes. I’ve read about the bogleheads approach. If just accumulating interest is a bad idea, it sounds like I need to invest it somewhere. I assume I would then pick a platform I feel is best, and then invest it with index funds and bond funds?

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“If just accumulating interest is a bad idea, it sounds like I need to invest it somewhere.”

jbp82,

No, no. Collecting interest can be good. What isn’t good is getting just a pre-tax 5% from your broker when you could be getting 5.4% with the 4-week T-bill, a portion of which would be sheltered from state income taxes, making the effective yield higher.

As for how much cash and cash-equivalents you should carry as a percentage of your overall assets under management (AUM), that depends on your needs, means, goals, opportunities, and near-term and longer-term market forecasts.

Charlie

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