Investment platforms / brokers and a few tips

1. Merrill Edge - I have both margin accounts and IRA accounts. All with permissions to trade stocks, stock options and bonds. Stock trades are commission free. Option trade costs $0.65/contract. Bond trades commissions are included in the quotes.

2. Bank of America HSA - I usually buy high deductible health insurance policy and contribute HSA maximum allowed but i dont expense any as I mainly used it as tax free investment vehicle for future health costs. When chaging jobs, I would roll over the balance from company’s provided bank to this HSA account.

3. Interactive Brokers - I have margin account and IRA accounts. I have been its customer for more than 20 years. IB has the best electronic trading platform for regular retail traders and it has access to worldwide markets and simple ways to trade foreign markets and you can sweep cash easily between USD and other currencies. It has nice APIs and good enough real-time market data that you can do day trading and program trading. I used to scalp futures on es/cl/ng so much IB assigned a person with direct access to me so I could call him to resolve any order issues.

IB provides many data packages with fee that you can subscribe / unsubscribe easily. Its Pro vesrion charges $10 a month with some discount from trades but it now has Lite version that had no montly fee and free-commission stock trades.

Nowadays I only trade futures to hedge my positions. For example if you own S&P 500 Index funds you can sell ES contracts as a hedge.

4. Vanguard - I have brokerage accounts for checking, money market, mutual funds and stocks in margin accounts, ESA / 529 for kids education and IRA accounts. Vanguard also provides a nice no-cost 401k plan service if you run your own company like LLC / C Corp / S Corp.

Over 20 years the returns from ESA’s $2000/year contribution in the 1st 10 years were adaquate to pay for more than 50% in-state college education costs. The power of investment compounding!

5. Robinhood- I trade stocks, options and cryptos. it’s commission free but most other brokers are offering free trades too. For causal trading it’s a good platform. It doesn’t have a wallet yet so you could not transfer your cryptos for safe-keeping purpose.

6. Chase - I use it for checking & saving accounts and it’s my main sources to pay bills. It offers nice credit cards with rewards.

A few pro tips:
1. don’t expose your banking accounts unnecessarily. Use a single checking accounts to bills
2. don’t use debit card to do any purchase. Use credit cards. It’s tedious to correct any mistakes or fraudulent transactions on debit card. Pay off entire balance on credt cards
3. invest long term and don’t panic selling or chasing market highs because you worry about missing the train
4. 401k - I usually maximize contribution regardless company matching or not. Depending on each year tax bracket, I choose how much going to pre-tax and how much going to Roth or Afer-tax. If you have a sabbatical or gap year where your income dropped significantly use it as opportunity to do Roth conversion so you can pay a lower tax bracket rate and lock in that money for future tax-free growth.

补充内容 (2022-01-30 00:28 +08:00):
I meant to mention that Bank of America HSA allows you to invest in mutual funds. That’s why I listed it but missed the most important point.