I suppose Vanguard is OK. I use Schwab and Fidelity. I like the fact that Schwab offers banking and has excellent phone support. They also offer some good funds with low expenses. I wish that they offered Yodlee as part of their platform.
I like Fidelity for similiar reasons. Good variety of funds. Easy to use web site. I love the yodlee platform that they have build in called FullView. It allows you to access all of your financial accounts ie banking, cc, investment, etc. I also like the fact that they offer very low cost funds which is good for dollar cost averaging. If you planned on making lum sum of 2K twice a year then you may want to consider an ETF instead. Slightly lower mangerment fee but you do pay the brokerage fee.
In volitile markets it is helpful to be able to exit a position immediately as oppsed to wating to end of business day.
Other thought is that having a company that offers a variety of funds has some advantages later on with respect to break point on commissions. If you have kids and are thinking 529 Fidelity now manages the California Scholarshare program so it is another benefit. Again, hard to make a clean reccommendation without all the facts but these are some ideas to think about.
