Wells Fargo PMA/Wells Trade

Anyone with experience with Wells Fargo banking and/or Wells Trade? They
seem to be offering a deal similar to what Scudder did a few years ago - if
you keep enough money with them, services are free or cheap enough to make
it worth looking at for consolidation.

Specifically:

- the banking side gets pretty close to completely free if you keep a
combined $25K brokerage/bank balance with them - no foreign ATM fees, no fee
for "rewards" credit card, for check printing, for cashier's checks, etc.
At $250K they'll rebate ATM surcharges.

- the brokerage side will charge a max of $9.95/trade; at $100K they'll drop
that to $2.95 for the first 50 trades/year including mutual funds with
transaction fees (Vanguard, Price, etc.); at $250K, the first 50 trades drop
to zero.

They have a very respectable list of NTF funds (800), and at $3 or less for
other funds, it seems like a reasonable way of consolidating accounts.

Wells Fargo has a mixed reputation - large bank, but also technologically
savvy. I'm more interested in how good they are on the broker/fund side
(which is why the post is here). Thoughts appreciated.

Would anyone care to guess how long this will last (Scudder's and
Scottrade's free mutual fund trading each lasted just a few years)?
--
Mark Freeland

Re: Wells Fargo PMA/Wells Trade

I wrote in message news:imlze.3453$p%
> Anyone with experience with Wells Fargo banking and/or Wells Trade?
> ...

FWIW, there wasn't much I could find about quality of broker service, but
for background:


Reduction of brokerage fees, noting that it is the rare bank that reduces
brokerage fees based on bank balances and mortgage balances as well as
brokerage balances; also that discounts apply to non-NTF mutual funds (in
addition to stocks), which is why I am interested in WellsTrade.


Barron's Online, March 2005 rated WellsTrade poorly - but the factors
considered are almost exclusively issues for stock trading, not open end
fund investing, and the costs factor (which is why I started looking at
this) is out of date.


Business Wire PR on rate reduction, noting "the [rate reduction] cuts
commissions for online mutual fund investing, largely neglected by other
brokers in their recent commission reductions." It claims 800 NTF funds,
and 2,000 in all.

It notes that Wells Fargo (bank, not brokerage) was top-rated internet bank
in 2004 by Gomez, and that WellsTrade is ranked sixth by Gomez (March 2005)
for online brokers.


2003 article talking about banks in the online brokerage business. Wells
Fargo was the first bank to offer online trading, and it created and owns
ShareBuilder. Well is (or was, at the time) targeting its existing banking
customers, as contrasted with Harris Bank (that bought CSFB Direct, formerly
DLJ Direct).

--
Mark Freeland