Multiple Brokerage Accounts

[FTW]

One of the things I have learned over the decades is to find MULTIPLE top Brokerage Firms to deal with.

In the past, I have used Investment Firms where I would give them my money and they would "advise" me on what stocks to invest in.

My biggest problem dealing with them is they had "rules" that would prevent me from buying stock that I KNEW was about to go much higher. The reason I knew this information was because I was connected to someone that worked for a company and that person had information about future changes in the company.

This was NOT a case of insider trading or top security information that was directly connected to the stock price. It was simply information I was able to obtain and logic told me the company was going to improve their fiscal shape dramatically.

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I also signed on with multiple "on line" brokerage houses that were small and cheap.

One of them was eventually bought out by a larger firm. That worked out pretty good for me because years later the larger firm was bought out by one of the major multinational investment management and financial services companies from NYC.

I am still dealing with that brokerage firm, because I like the type of information they give me as well as the on-line market pricing.

The other cheap on-line brokerage house ended up costing me way too much money in fees. So I closed that account and opened an account with another major multinational investment management and financial services companies from NYC.

I still use that company because they offer a different type of "report" on my transactions that allows me to track exactly how many times I purchased a particular stock, when I purchased it, how many shares I bought, when I sold it, if it was sold on a FIFO (First in First Out) or LIFO (Last IN, First Out) and how much profit I made on the stock.

The bottom line is that I am an information junky and no one place gives me all of the information that I want, so I prefer to use multiple brokerage houses.

IT also comes in handy, so that I can buy the same stock at different prices, through different brokerage houses and track them better then if I have all the shares through one house.

Another advantage of having multiple accounts is that I can get around the 3 day rule, if I need to .

The three day rule is that if I buy a stock on Monday, the money doesn't officially clear until Wednesday. So, that means I can NOT sell that stock on Monday or Tuesday, and use that money to buy another stock on Monday or Tuesday, UNLESS I have enough capital in my account to pay for the second stock that I want to buy.

By using multiple accounts, (with cash accounts) I still need to have the cash available, but I can actually buy stock #2 before I sell stock #1 or after it, without worrying about how many days it has been since Stock # 1 was bought.

So, basically less chance of me making a mistake when I move too fast on a buy or sell.

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