What It Means To You

In a merger of two of the Big 4 independent custodians, Schwab is buying TD (Fidelity and Pershing are the other two). As a client, your investments with us are held at TD. So what does this merger mean to you? In the spirit of an “FOQ” (like this one, or this one), the short answer is…nothing.

The long answer is that right now, for you, this deal looks cosmetic only. A year or two or five – yes, it may take that long – down the road, we may have a form to sign together. But history would suggest otherwise. When TD bought Scottrade, they simply sent out negative consent letters. No signature needed.

Of course, Schwab feeds data into our client portal as TD does, so no change there either. If you ever log in to TD’s website directly, perhaps you’ll need to re-register. But that’s way down the road, and no big deal.

So we guess the only disappointment could be that if you really like green on your statements, you’re out of luck. Schwab uses blue. But that’s the only thing to get blue about.

Cheers,

John, Bill, Mark & Melanie