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The other week a good question was brought up between a few friends of mine.  We were all at lunch sitting around talking about our lives, work, and well money always comes up.  Our conversation went from topic to topic. It is not hard with the COVID-19 Pandemic going on.  All the markets are a mess. They have essentially crashed and are making all these constant mini recoveries and mini crashes back to back based on the congress printing money.  Well after we got to talking about how oil hit zero dollars and who was investing in who, we all asked the question who do you actually buy your investments from.

This was a hard question because in reality most of us didn’t have our own personal brokers although we act like we do.  So the question when brought up was a slow burner. No one wanted to answer.  Not sure if it was shame, or fear of lack on knowing something really important. Are there really advantages to purchasing investments from one company or app to the next?  We know some people had really high end investment firms that dominate like American FX .  We had heard the percentage of increase on their investment every lunch from a year, but most of us didn’t have that type of connection.

The first individual to speak up, said hey I just use E-trade.  It seemed to be about the same as all the others.  His answer was music to our ears, because most of us used the basic companies just like it from e-trade to the Robinhood apps. We had found a new normal between most of us.  The most experienced investor in the group was open to saying there really is no difference between how you buy your investments.  If you don’t have a brokerage firm you are spending less on the trade so it’s a, “Win win” all around.  It was honestly a big relief to us and we all felt better about not being super fancy.  Most of us used the same or similar companies to purchase stock and the benefits of one over the other really didn’t out way anyone changing.

So don’t be afraid of who you use to invest in stocks, bonds, or mutual funds.  The important part is that you are investing and building wealth.  As per the usual we are not giving financial advice only talking about the market as we see it.  Please see your local broker, investment firm, or attorney for financial advice.