Bye Loyal 3

Auf Wiedersehen Gremlin here to wish Loyal 3 Good-Bye.  Last night the brokerage sent out a mass email to all its users informing them that they will be shutting down and transferring everyone's assets to "low cost" FolioFirst.  Loyal3 is giving three options: 1 - sell everything, take the money, and run; 2 - do nothing and they will transfer your assets into FolioFirst; or 3 - transfer your shares into another brokerage.  For me this is an easy decision, I will take door #3.  With it Loyal 3 will be selling my fractional shares, depositing whole shares in my main brokerage, and depositing all remaining cash in my checking account.  In addition, they will waive the standard transfer fee.

As for the other options, option 1 is just not my game - selling it all and running for the hills is not what I would do (though it is what survivor-gremlin would do...).  Option 2 was intriguing, FolioFirst offers up to 2000 free trades on 200 companies per month.  However, starting in August they would levy a $5 monthly fee for the account.  Though it would be cheaper to maintain an account here if one was buying / selling often enough considering commissions, it still rings hollow.  I also don't do enough buys to justify this.  Going forward, I plan on reducing costs by trying to increase my buy minimum from $1000 up to $1200 or 1500.  That will reduce my fee percentage, and if necessary the size purchases can be increased.

I had hoped Loyal 3 would continue for another year or two, but in the end the result was going to be the same.  That account was going to be merged with my main brokerage account.  If anything, I am happy that they were around to allow some of my positions to be built from scratch.  In the long run, these positions, regardless of size, will become cogs in the engine that is under construction.

So long Loyal 3, we had a good run.

- Dividend Gremlin

PS if you want a better break down of changes go visit the Dividend Growth Investor.