Personal Finance and Investing

And if he's acting as a financial advisor too (and not just an order-taker), he's probably constantly recommending trading -- sell this, buy that, Kaching! Lots of churning - virtually a metaphysically certain recipe for serious underperformance for the portfolio, but will make this trusty nice guy wealthy -- assuming he has enough people ignorant enough to pay commissions like this.

Myself, I do no stock trading at all. I have just one stock which I inherited years ago. The rest of my financial investments are in (almost entirely index) mutual funds and ETFs. With Vanguard and Fidelity. In buy-and-hold mode with, over the years, incremental moves towards more diversity (moving towards more international and less U.S.).

Vanguard and places like that charge like $7 / trade online, or $25 by phone. For stocks and ETFs.