again, Lehman and Bear where also to big to fail. Like I said , I know it’s probably not necessary, but being retired, I don’t want to chance it as far as additional risk, I think if I choose the right firms, the added risk is pretty minimal. That’s why I’m looking at Fidelity and E-Trade (which is Morgan Stanley). I went thru 2008 as a broker/financial planner. I don’t want to go thru it as a client. Even if the chance is very small, which I believe it is.
thanks OT, I’m an old trader too, retired as a broker/Planner 3 years ago. The firms all offer something like $5,000,000 supplemental insurance. The problem is, when you look at what their total coverage is, it would never cover all the accounts with over SIPC. Does IB give you the ability to buy treasuries at auction? Or only from their inventory? At TD I buy at auction.
on TD Ameritrade, you either put in for the next scheduled auction, or you search their inventory. Two different systems, two different sections of their website. Buying at auction, you know the exact yield after the auction takes place, from inventory you know immediately when you buy, actually before you buy
First, you can't participate at an auction at IB. Second, they don't have an inventory either. They act as an agent. They charge $5 as far as I know, that's what I've been charged. As I understand it, at the auction you can buy $1,000. I doubt you can do that in the secondary market. As you probably know, the round lot size in the T-Bill market is $1 million. But my typical size has been $50,000-$100,000 without issue. For that, I pay $5 commission. Sometimes there's an advantage to making a trade in the secondary market rather than the auction. I bought 6 month bills for about 5.3% last week. By Friday I show the yield down to 5.04%. My daughter tells me there's an auction on Monday, which she's been waiting for, so unless the yields go back up alot on Monday she's not going to do as well as I did. BTW, she's with Schwab, they can buy at auction. OldTrader
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