In microsoft.public.money, Theorbo wrote:

- quote -

TD Waterhouse has been working OK; they are merging with Ameritrade,
so I wonder how that will work. Fidelity and Vanguard seems to do
pretty well -- at least for funds. The one area they can have
oddities is in the area of the swept funds. The brokers seem to all
have OFX servers, which is good. I think I have heard people speak
well of Schwab and Ameritrade. I don't hear people complaining about
Brown. AG Edwards works well, but they are an expensive broker.
Merrill Lynch does not have direct OFX, and I do remember somebody
asking about a problem recently, so that would not seem to be the
good choice with regard to Money *or* money.

In choosing a broker, in addition to how it works with Money, take a
look at the interest paid on swept funds if you plan to have much in
cash. If you don't find that info on the web site, know that they
can't brag about it. Also note that different brokers have different
breakpoints at which they offer better commission rates or reduced
fees. Some brokers hit you with fees for an "involuntary
reorganization (when a stock changes its name or merges with another
company). But you were probably already checking those items.

The people discussing problems seem to be having troubles mostly
with banks and credit cards and not with brokers.

A really neat way to find prior postings in this group is to use the
Google Usenet Groups archive.

http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search enter words that you
think would be in relevant posts into the "all of the words" box.
Enter microsoft.public.money into the newsgroup box. Consider
selecting Sort By Date.

There used to be a lot of Fidelity discussions that you will see if
you search for 'FCASH'. Those are not recent, so I wonder if there
was an improvement, or if the Money users settled in on working
around it.

I plan on opening an IRA and while it's not any of my most important
decisions, which brokerages or investment firms have "full integration" with
Money? Is it the same as with banks? I don't even know ... is the extent
of integration for investing just telling it the symbol of what you own and
it updates the prices/share? Or are there 'transactions' to download as
well?

Can someone tell me what their experience has been - and who it's been with?

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