Charles Schwab Investment
Are you a high net worth family with $5 million to $500 million in liquid assets? If so, the right wealth management and investment management choices can go a long way in managing your net worth. For instance, which investment firm should you work with? What type of assets should you invest in? Are firms like Charles Schwab Investment good for you? A good financial advisor can guide you on these key decisions. If you are looking for a new financial advisor, we recommend requesting our free book on how you can find the best financial advice for high net worth families with $5+ million in assets.
STRATEGIES FOR FAMILIES WORTH $5 MILLION TO $500 MILLION
7 Secrets To High Net Worth Investment Management, Estate, Tax and Financial Planning
The insights you’ll discover from our published book will help you integrate a variety of wealth management tools with financial planning, providing guidance for your future security alongside complex financial strategies, so your human and financial capital will both flourish.
Clients frequently share with us how the knowledge gained from this book helped provide them tremendous clarity, shattering industry-pitched ideologies, while offering insight and direction in making such important financial decisions.
In the interest of full disclosure, one advisory option when your money is at Charles Schwab is to utilize a firm like Pillar Wealth Management which serves clients who have between $5 million and $500 million in liquid assets.
One reason this is appealing to existing Schwab clients is that we utilize Schwab to custody our clients’ money. What that means for existing Schwab account holders is that the accounts will remain as-is, the money is accessible to you, and the links to your debit/credit cards and bank accounts all remain in place. Your cost-base information and all historical details will be preserved this way while you gain a new advisor to guide you and invest your portfolio. We are merely granted access to manage your portfolio, but within the well-functioning and trustworthy Schwab platform.
This arrangement protects you. It also helps you avoid ACAT transfers (firm to firm), IRA-to-IRA transfers, and the like if you desire to hire a new wealth management firm. If you want to talk to a wealth manager who has served ultra-high net worth clients for over 30 years and uses a 100% custom approach to create a plan that grows, manages, and protects your wealth, schedule a free call with one of our co-founders, Hutch Ashoo or Chris Snyder.
Pillar Wealth Management is a fiduciary advisory firm that offers wealth management services to high-net-worth clients with $5 million up to $500 million in liquid assets. We offer comprehensive wealth management solutions and guide our clients to make the best investment and wealth management decisions that help them increase their wealth. Get in touch today and talk to our wealth managers!
In this article, we will review Charles Schwab investment and answer questions like:
• Should you open a Charles Schwab investment account?
• What do Charles Schwab investment management solutions include?
Let’s begin.
Charles Schwab: An Overview
Charles Schwab Corporation is a full-service brokerage firm. Its founder, Charles Schwab, started the corporation in 1971. At the time, it was a traditional brokerage firm. Charles Schwab is a financial executive and American investor. He pioneered the concept of discount sales of equity-based securities in 1974. Currently, his company is the leading discount securities dealer in the USA.
Through his brokerage firm, Schwab offered a combination of fast and efficient order executions with low prices that made the company the largest discount broker in the United States. Currently, the company holds approximately $4 trillion in client assets. Schwab has been recognized for his efforts to democratize investment.
His company is more than just a brokerage today. It also offers comprehensive investing and banking services to domestic and international clients. Altogether, the company holds around 14 million accounts.
What Does Charles Schwab Offer?
Charles Schwab offers brokerage, trading, retirement, and estate planning products. Their investment products include a combination of:
• Mutual funds
• Stocks
• Index funds and ETFs
• Annuities
• Bonds, Certificate of Deposits, and other fixed-income securities
• Money Market Funds
• Margin Lending
• Options
• Cash Solutions
• Futures
You can also make use of their retirement income solutions and figure out how much money you require for retirement. Given the various options available, you might be compelled to open a Charles Schwab investment account. However, we do recommend exercising some caution here. Unless you are aware of how these securities work, you may need professional guidance before you proceed further.
That’s something we can help you with. If you want to learn how these securities work, talk to a wealth manager at Pillar Wealth Management. Book a consultation today!
Who Is Charles Schwab Suitable for?
As an investment firm, Charles Schwab can be suitable for different types of investors. If you’re an active trader or a self-directed investor comfortable with making their own investment decisions, then you could benefit from the investment products offered by Charles Schwab. The investment firm can also facilitate clients in need of portfolio management and investment advisory services. However, there is room for improvement here.
Let’s look at the pros, as well as cons of Charles Schwab investment services to understand this better.
What are the 3 Key Advantages of Charles Schwab Investment?
As an investor or a high net worth individual, you can expect the following advantages and disadvantages of utilizing Charles Schwab investment management services.
The Advantages
1. Good for Investing in ETFs
According to Investopedia, Charles Schwab is among the best brokerage firms for investments in ETFs. It also has a great ETF screener available on StreetSmart Edge. Their ETF screener has extensive criteria and screens for 150+ variables. Some of these include:
• Asset class
• Fund performance
• Regional exposure
• Morningstar category
2. Reasonable Levels of Customization
Independent traders and investors can also use StreetSmart Edge to customize and personalize their investment options. In comparison, Schwab’s website has a limited number of customization options available.
Most of these features are more suitable for people having a reasonable level of knowledge on how investment management works. If you are looking for professional help on this front, we suggest working with a financial advisor.
To learn more, go through our guide on selecting a financial advisor for high net worth investors with $5 to $500 million in liquid assets.
3. Controlled Costs for ETFs and Certain Other Investment Options
One of the advantages of using Charles Schwab is that you don’t have to pay a commission on your ETF trades, online equity trades, and OTCBB (Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board) trades.
The website does not charge investors a per-leg commission on the trade of options, as well. However, you have to pay a commission of $0.65 on a per-contract basis. For instance, if you place an order for 60 options contracts, then you will have to pay a total of $39.
The firm also offers a No Transaction Fee program that allows you to buy and sell your mutual fund shares without having to pay a commission. There is a selection of mutual fund shares that qualify for commission-free trading under this program.
However, if you want to trade shares of mutual funds that don’t fall under this program,you will have to pay a commission of $49.95.
If you are investing in a new fixed-income issue, you don’t have to pay a commission. However, if you make a secondary market trade on bonds, then the cost will be $1 per bond. There will be no markup charged on the bond itself.
For transactions involving futures contracts, each party has to pay $1.50 per contract. In the case of forex trading, you will be charged a 1% commission for exchanges that are under $100,000. For exchanges over $1 million, the commission rate is 0.2%.
A few other costs you can look out for is the live broker fee. This will cost you $25 per trade for different asset classes. Schwab also doesn’t charge a fee if your account is inactive or closed. There are no fees for the following, as well:
• Account transfer
• Receiving and sending wires
• Sending paper statements, checks, or trade confirmations
The Primary Takeaway for Costs
While the idea of no costs or commissions on specific trades can be very appealing, you will also need to do your due diligence in tracking which trades will cost you and vice versa. If you are a high-net-worth investor with over $5 million in liquid assets, then keeping an eye on your costs can be a hassle. You’ll have a large number of assets here, and you’ll need more resources to manage your costs. Hiring a financial advisor can prove more useful to you here.
Should You Open a Charles Schwab Investment Account?
There are many advantages of Charles Schwab investment management solutions. Whether you should open an account with this investment firm mainly depends on your current net worth, your investment goals, and how much professional help you need.
If you belong to a high net worth or ultra-high net worth family, then working with a full-service wealth management firm may be more suited to your interests. To understand this better, read our guide on choosing a financial advisor for managing over $10 million in liquid assets.
You can also arrange a free consultation and speak directly to our team.
How Can High Net Worth Clients Benefit From a Wealth Manager?
At Pillar Wealth Management, we strongly recommend that clients with a net worth of more than $5 million seek help from a fiduciary advisor to manage their assets. Some of the ways they can serve you include:
Better Risk Management
Risk management is a vital part of managing your investments and minimizing your losses. The higher your net worth, the more effort you need to put into managing your risk. Pillar Wealth Management uses various techniques to control risk. These include using extensive historical data, creating an Efficient Frontier to optimize returns and control risk, and running portfolio stress tests.
These techniques allow us to ensure you stay within your risk threshold while earning the highest possible returns. To learn more, order a hardcover copy of The Art of Protecting Ultra-High Net Worth Portfolios and Estates – Strategies For Families Worth $25 Million To $500 Million. It’s absolutely free!
Tailored Portfolio Design
Each investor has a different vision and a different set of goals. Automated solutions can only get you so far here, and a tailored portfolio is essential for achieving your investment and retirement goals. Working with a wealth manager will allow you to customize your portfolio as per your needs.
It also allows you more options for choosing securities that reflect your risk appetite.
Minimize Costs
A qualified wealth manager will use a comprehensive and organized approach to minimize your costs. The professionals at Pillar Wealth Management use a variety of ways to do this. For starters, we help you balance between passive and active investing styles. This controls your costs in terms of short-term and long-term capital gains tax.
We also help you make the most of tax shelters that can reduce your tax burden. Some of the other costs we can help you control include:
• Bond sale spread
• Internal expenses
• Your advisor’s fee
• Commissions
Ensure Proper Asset Allocation
Having numerous options to invest in is great. However, you also need to make sure your portfolio carries a healthy amount of 3 primary asset classes: stocks, cash, and bonds.
A good asset allocation is vital for securing your returns amid changing market conditions. It can also impact your portfolio risk.
Besides the above, a financial advisor can also help you make other important changes. To learn what these are, go through our guide on the 5 vital shifts that determine your portfolio performance.
Wrapping It Up
Charles Schwab investments offers a wide array of investing and retirement products that can benefit independent investors and active traders. However, it is debatable whether their services are sufficient for high net worth families that need more comprehensive wealth management services.
Pillar Wealth Management has 60+ years of combined experience that can help you here. If you belong to a high net worth family, reach out to us. We will be happy to discuss your investment needs in a free session and determine if we are a good match for you. Click here to talk to a member of our team today!
To be 100% transparent, we published this page to help filter through the mass influx of prospects, who come to us through our website and referrals, to gain only a handful of the right types of new clients who wish to engage us.
We enjoy working with high net worth and ultra-high net worth investors and families who want what we call financial serenity – the feeling that comes when you know your finances and the lifestyle you desire have been secured for life, and that you don’t have to do any of the work to manage and maintain it because you hired a trusted advisor to take care of everything.
You see, our goal is to only accept 17 new clients this year. Clients who have from $5 million to $500 million in liquid investable assets to entrust us with on a 100% fee basis. No commissions and no products for sale.
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