Remember in ancient times when a stock trade would cost like 7.00 on the internet?
The lack of trading cost really underlines the continual choices we make in allocation.
Imagine if you could move and sell houses with zero transaction cost. It would be absolutely exhausting. Being a little stuck is relaxing. That amount of ease and volume of decisionmaking would be utterly exhausting. And would prob make u less happy where u are.
So too i think is no fee trading to a much lesser extent.
Any time you look at your portfolio you are essentially deciding to buy every single holding in there at that exact price and quantity. Or else sayong no i am respecting my prior selfs decision, like some passive heir to a prior finanvial structure.
[quote=ucodegen]I would rather have it than not. Too many problems when you don’t have it.
I have a lot of my portfolio in long term holdings, which mean selling it will kill me in taxes.
The more interesting question in all of this is how do the brokerages then make money if the transaction costs are zero?[/quote]
Long term gains in taxable account are the perfect way to retire early. I’ve got it all calculated out. Sell 25K ordinary income and 80K long term per year has an effective tax rate of 0 fed and 3.09 CA! Problem though is I don’t think I can sell it all off before my 401K RMD hits. I think brokerage make money on some market maker fees. But it is getting really hard to get money from the brokerages for depositing money. I don’t think they are doing well without commisions.
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