John G

If the IRA account is small, it probably is not worth the hassle (search for a custodian, extra annual fees, appraisal issue, etc.) of doing real estate, LLC or not. The more "local" the deal, the more difficult to get a custodian to allow the transaction - bear in mind, they don't want to be on the hook for anything that could be consider unsuitable. Its also harder to approve a transaction when there is minimal track record of the general partner. You are correct about LTCG treatment is the same, regardless of the investment. Some real estate deals make more sense when you can utilize the tax losses/write-offs. The issues I raised (lack of diversification, deal evaluation, liquidity, etc.) are significant hurtles for investing in real estate. When you opt for the LLC route, you have minimal input into the decisions, timing and risks undertaken. I did not think you made a very compelling case for sending money to your real estate friend. The "sophisticated investor" threshold is defined by assets/income, not actual investment knowledge. The SEC is worries more about the retail investor. When you are classified as "SI" or "QI" (QI is a higher level, both are self declared) they expect you will hire your own financial advisors, lawyers and accountants. The process is designed to keep small players out of complicated investment vehicles which are not heavily scrutinized by regulators. You indicated that you were not a real estate expert. That suggests to me that you should not participate in these deals.

And.... the UBTI problem can still lurk. As noted by folks above, while it is not impossible, it is darn difficult. Remember that your IRA/Roth may also not be pledged as collateral. You also lose some of the tax benefits associated with real estate ownership. For example, you lose the long term capital gains treatment, and also can not write off real estate losses. I am currently in ten LLPs involving real estate. These range from office bldgs (John Hancock tower in Boston), to apartment complexes and Euro shopping centers. I don't have any IRA/Roth or retirement funds in any of these. See this link for some of the issues: http://benefitslink.com/boards/index.php?s...987&hl=UBIT Do not make assumptions about what might be OK. Too much is at risk. Hire at least one tax professional familiar with real estate dealings and tax shelter retirement accounts. Do not rely upon "my friend, the real estate investor" for tax advice. Also, there is nothing magical about separate LLCs for each investment, that you mention this makes me wonder how much you know about how real estate deals generally get done. Do you know about cap rates, promotes, claw backs, and oversight functions given to investors in these deals? You also give no indication about your age, professional training, experience or the size of the assets you are talking about. The only hint you provide is that you currently have mutual funds. Real estate deals require more sophistication than company evaluations in my opinion. For example, I would respond differently if you have seven figures in assets and more than a 20 year base of business experience compared to someone ten years out of college and say 100K in assets. You have a much higher risk of getting hurt in single LLC investments then in mutual funds. I hope you will accept these words of caution.

OK. I think we have narrowed it down to get some help in the future and work to document what you did so the IRS will be satisfied. I believe from what you have said, you have no tax liability. On credit: Depending upon the interest rate you were paying, you might have been better off to stay with the Roth and pay off the loans. Not everyone qualifies for a Roth every year. Congress can change the rules. Car loan debt typically has the interest front end loaded (which most people do not realize), so you rarely want to pay off a car loan after making payments for a couple of years. HELOC rates tend to be close to the bottom (only some college loans, mortgages, some brokerage margin rates and front end credit card teases are likely to be that level or lower). If you had said credit card debt or other high cost debt, I think you would have been absolutely right. To be debt free is fine, but a well disciplined household can often take advantage of very low cost debt. You got simplicity and hit a goal, which also has its rewards. Good luck with the "invest like no other" part. That puts you miles ahead of your cohorts.

I think he implied that he converted 100% in 1998. The 14K getting split 7 + 7 with half rolling over was I believe in 2005. It sounds like the conversion was done properly, but the rollover was poorly documented. It appears to meet that he would not owe taxes on the 7K kept, but has to battle with IRS to document what he did. Part of the problem was that he apparently used the 60 day option (First WARNING: Avoid this kind of 60 day rollover option. They can cause great pain), instead use direct custodian to custodian transfers. Note the author never mentioned is why he took out the 7K. I believe there were a number of reasons for withdrawing that were allowed in 2005.... but I will let our accountants confirm that. My usual question - why mess with your excellant tax shelter by taking out funds? The whole purpose of a Roth is to keep $$$ sheltered for the max amount of time. Money has been "on sale" for the past few years - HELOCs, margin loans, family loans (yes, you can beat the CDs rates of your parents/aunt/uncle) and signature lines are all possible ways to avoid tapping a Roth. Second WARNING! Please, folks, don't work the high wire without a net. When doing these kinds of transactions, spend the $100 or 150 (Colorado rates) and consult a tax advisor or accountant. You do not want to be your own brain surgeon. Shoot, even the professionals have trouble understanding our tax code. You do not want to trigger penalties, taxes, or your time cleaning up a mess. An hour of professional time up front can save you money and aggevation. {I am not an accountant or tax advisor, so I am not making some selfserving plea for my profession.}

Let me rephrase your story in time sequence: - You worked in the 90s and had earned income that allowed you to contribute 2K a year to a traditional IRA. (You did not indicate if you claimed any deductions for contributions) - In 1998, you converted all (?) of these funds to a Roth IRA and apparently paid taxes over four years. (What was the total amount converted? 14K or something between the 10K (2 x 5 yrs) and 14K. - Then in 2005, you took a distributions of 14,000 from your Roth which was at a brokerage. - What is not clear is if you then rolled over 7K into a different Roth or just a different taxable account at a brokerage. If you rolled over to a Roth, you had to complete this transaction in 60 days. (please clarify if the second brokerage was a Roth or just a taxable account and the number of days between exit and redeposit). My first thoughts: If your IRA contributions were legal and you subsequently were eligible to make a Roth conversion and paid all the taxes, then you may have no tax obligation related to a 2005 distribution. But, we would need to know your age, the amount you converted in 1998, and if you only took a 7K or the full 14K as a distribution. If all your transactions were done correctly, then the conversion math would determine your basis. But as jevd pointed out, your age my erase any tax obligation.

Yes, perhaps a lot more than "whiff". When normal folks endure a week or two of bad news and then pull the plug, I think you can call that more than fear... panic. I can't report any genius type moves by me. I was slowly building a cash position in the second week of August and had gotten to about 25% cash. But, as the market retreated, I was seeing opportunities and buying. Now if I had just waited about 5 days longer, then it would be an amazing decision. I just looked at the six new or additional positions that I took in the past two weeks and every one of them is up 2-8%. I am not recommending that folks go the stock picking route - it takes time, requires analytical and math skills and you have to enjoy the signficiant research requirement. I spend about 20 hours a week scanning sources. I read SEC filings, newswire articles and listen to almost every quarterly conference call. That is a lot of hours because I actively track about 60 stocks in 10 sectors and hold between 20 and 30 stocks. When everyone in the media is pitching doom and gloom, you want to start thinking about being a buyer. The folks you see as talking heads (and many in print journalism) know very little about economics and investing. They are in the business of selling a story - and recently that has been the sublime suprime meltdown. (Running neck and neck with bad products from China) As with many things, the headline hype vastly overstates the extent of the problem. "Talking Heads" is really a derogatory term. A few extra comments about "research": One of my daily reads is www.valueforum.com which is a fee based site with a couple of thousand members. There is no flaming, minimal touting (a few claims of credit which are well diserved), no vulgarity... basically lots of beef and not a lot of fluff. It is 10x better than any free message board I have ever visited. I suspect that about 50% of the membership are millionaires, and we have perhaps a half dozen folks that work or own hedge funds. This group focuses on dividend paying stocks, resource companies, basic materials, transport/shipping, REITS, financials, and with only a small amount of technology. This is a stock pickers message board. Folks are welcome to visit and for a modest fee, try a trial membership. VF was created by some 20 something geeks, but it seems like most of the members are a few decades older. You can "lurk", but a site like this works best when members find some way to participate. (Disclosure: I have no financial affiliation with this group.)

I agree with the current "blend them all" aspect of IRA assets. Under the current rules, you don't need separate accounts - and that can be simpler, easier to track/manage and potentially involve fewer fees. However, I can think of three reasons why you might want to keep the accounts separate: (1) because you don't want all your assets at one brokerage or mutual fund family, (2) you don't want to liquidate current investments, and (3) you are concerned about future rule changes. These are not likely to be factors for folks just getting started, but rather with households with substantial assets in retirement accounts. It may help to have two points of access in a volatile market. On some of the recent crazy days, Schwab had systems lock up and Etrade had trouble with their bid/quote system. Seems like a pretty remote issue, but a few stock picking friends decided they needed to split their assets between a couple of brokerages. (Brokerages also differ in how they handle international stocks, which has recently become another bone of contention to folks buying individual stocks.) Not every brokerage has the same coverage of mutual funds, so combining accounts might mean you need to sell some mutual funds.

You got the right answer to the narrow question - once you put in the max for the year, you are "maxed out" and can not contribute more. Also note that max limits do notch higher some years, and when you hit age 50, you get a "make up" boost. And, yes, you can put in more on Jan 1 of 2008. On investing.... especially for a broader audiance of readers beyond the couple that posted: Between July 19 2007 and mid August, we saw a nasty 10% correction in the overall markets and a lot more than that in anything associated with mortgages, finance, brokerages, home building, etc. No one should be surprised that their mutual funds or stock portfolios are 10% lower. Some folks with cash have been buyers... just as others have made panic sells. I got caught in this sell off like many others, but after two weeks, I was moving cash over to equities... not at the bottom, but at "sale" prices for some very good companies. People who act on extreme fear or unbridled greed rarely get it right. The first are selling when they should be buying - - something about "buy low" seems to be forgotten. The second are chasing last years, months or weeks hot performance and greed drives them to join the crowd. Unfortunately, prior performance truly is NOT connected to future performance. The folks that join late are likely to be "buying high" and staying too long. I am responding to the concept of "panic". I don't mean to encourage folks into thinking they can time the market changes. I've never met anyone who successfully did this over the long haul. Lots of folks make claims, most bring up performance after the fact. (Like we don't actually know who won the Super Bowl last year... how about telling me who is going to win THIS year!) But, I do like to buy when there is a whiff of panic in the air, when talking heads are sounding alarms.

We are glad to be helpful. For each person that posts a problem or question, there are often many who are alerted to a problem or potential problem. You post gave us a good reason to talk about record keeping and various ways to cross check your information. We have had dozens of posts about problems that could have been avoided if folks either kept better records, read the IRS/custodian rules carefully, or double checked their statements for accuracy. That's three hints to the folks who want to keep Murphy at bay!

I can't answer the technical side of your question... you will get an accountant to respond. But I want to encourage you to go up the chain of command and talk to the IRA/Roth retirement account dept at headquarters for this brokerage. They are generally better trained than the clerk types you often find at the walk up desk, or the service staff that answer 800 phone calls. Also, if you have substantial assets in this account, you may want to seek the advice and guidance of an experienced financial planner, tax lawyer or accountant before you act. You do not want to trigger problems because you had only a casual understanding of the regulations or worse still, relied on the comments from a brokerage. You will also find that the inexpensive internet brokerage houses may not have the support staff to handle peculiar/rare transactions. They want to capture the mass market, not spend lots of money on special cases. They can and will turn down business that is "complicated".

How indeed! You should have kept a file folder or 3-ring binder of your brokerage or mutual fund statements. Custodians normally show "contributions" for both the current and prior years. A second source of proof would be your cancelled checks (your bank may keep some records on file, so check with them). A third source, if you have used an accountant for tax filings, is that most accountants keep track of Roth contributions. I am assuming that you have a clear memory of your initial contributions to your Roth... such as 2k, 2k and 2k in the first few years. Your worse case scenario is that you just rely upon your memory of the amount that were original contributions. The original contributions to a Roth are not taxed at withdrawal. There is also no 10% penalty on withdrawing contributions. You need to check with IRS Publication 590 to determine if you can withdraw additional funds for qualified education expenses. Also note Applby's comments on this thread: http://benefitslink.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=36268 Suggestion: you need to pay more attention to your financial decisions and keep better records! Good luck with your legal degree.

MJB, thank you. Let me see if I understand this correctly as it applies to Roths with "outside investments". If I participate in a real estate LLP as an "outside investment", I might end up with UBIT. While this would not void the Roth (I don't live in NY or CA), this type of income would trigger UBIT taxes if over $1,000 a year. The taxes would be paid out of the Roth, slightly above the ordinary income level (35%)? I think this means that as long as UBIT was relatively minor, participation in the real estate LLP might still look attractive. For example, I have participated in a few LLPs in this decade for single buildings that had an IRR over 30%. An investment of 200k was completely flipped in just over 2 years when the property was sold. I shied away from using IRA or Roth funds, but it sounds like that would have been a good idea even if there were UBIT taxes, as long as they were minor. Instead, I used taxable funds and about 85% of the return was long term capital gains. I think I would have preferred to pay a minor amount of taxes on UBIT and have the oversized returns in my IRA/Roth. Other than not fully understanding the UBIT (which is still the case), the other factor is that the LLP participant has not control over how they handle the transaction and the accounting approach. Am I presenting this application of UBIT correctly?

Can one of our accountants provide a laypersons explaination of UBTI and how it would impact an IRA or Roth. I have seen the issue raised, but no one discusses the consequences..... account nullification? , tax impacts?

Fred, no biography needed, but readers should have some sense of the authors background. I just added some material to update and expand my profile. While the era of identity theft, suggests that you don't provide too much material, perhaps our major contributors should provide more background about themselves. (Hint, hint!) Can you provide expand on your original comment and give an example of the arrangements, requirements, parameters and costs? Please make it generic and not recommending a specific company. Strive to be factual rather than promotional... "fair and balanced" seems to be the catch phrase this decade which here means you try to summarize the benefits AND the negatives. In the past, we have had some "miracle cure" type posts (medical and investment) that we have had to screen out. Insurance is another tool that can address some problems and because this site is aimed at retirement plans, it rarely gets mentioned.

Fred Bee, I understand the concept, but you have offered a supposed alternative that is devoid of details. Frankly, I am not encouraging you to provide details if it comes across like an advertisement for insurance... which is when my role as a moderator would be activated. Also, if you choose to post on this topic again, I suggest that you mention any ties to the insurance industry. Part of the problem is that this is an apples to woodchips comparison. These two "alternatives" defy an easy comparison. Let me highlight some of the issues. > There are real overheads with insurance, and everyone can't be a winner compared to minimal overheads with building a Roth and almost all are "winners" with prudent investments and the passage of time. Both involve investments but you don't have any control over how an insurance company invest vs potential complete control over a Roth. I'm not interesting in an argument of which is better, just pointing out a huge difference. > The father would also have to continue to have sufficient funds to pay ever increasing premium payments which might present a problem to someone in retirement. If the father in his late years forgets to make a premium payment.... these don't map over to a Roth. > If you stop the "plan" you end up with zip with insurance (I make the assumption that only term could be remotely affordable), but if you stop contributing to a Roth you still have the beginnings of a nest egg intact. > You can have trouble finding any insurance policy because of medical history (my wife's short, one time bout with carpel tunnel when she was pregnant 25 years ago was excluded from coverage my an insurance company last year). > The 700k in your example is not tax sheltered once it gets turned over to the child while the Roth would continue in the shelter and could potentially pass on to the next generation... and the 700K could easily be a much higher number. > The child would not normally be able to tap into the insurance policy (such as for first time home purchase or education) while she could access the Roth. > Unless you have connections in the mob, you can't readily set the dates for the 700k to kick in. Of course, the insurance option could payoff early - an option you don't get with a Roth that requires decades to build. > Then we have the problem of potential default by the insurance company... a local attorney that I know used to accept a single policy as part of a setttlement - he doesn't anymore because of the non-trivial risk of the insurer defaulting. Insurance has a valid place in our society, but let's not pass it off as anything remotely like a miracle product or sure thing. (Roths aren't a perfect product or sure thing either.) Presenting a minimally explained idea with zero data provides little service to folks who come to this message board looking for information.

There are many mutual funds that have $1,000 minimum for initial deposit on Roths. Yes, you can also start for less with a systematic program. Let's say your have 500 to set aside for 2007 and could set aside another 500 in 2008. You could wait to early 2008 and fund a Roth with the 1,000 combined for two years, or start a 100/month contribution rate. You may have to hunt a bit, but I think you will be able to find a mutual fund or fund family that will meet your needs. I Googled "low minimum Roth mutual funds" and found some additional suggestions: http://mutualfunds.about.com/od/cheapmutualfunds/a/500.htm http://mutualfunds.about.com/od/cheapmutua.../a/under250.htm http://mydollar.blogspot.com/2005/10/mutua...ow-minimum.html http://forums.kiplinger.com/showthread.php?t=3250 These are suggestions only, not recommendations. Read the prospectus and online explanations carefully as funds can change minimums and have hidden fees or annual charges... a cursory look at these popped up a lot of familiar names so I think this is a good start. Google... its a beautiful thing! INSERT ADDITIONAL MATERIAL: I also ran across a helpful screening tool for mutual funds (see web reference below) where I could set search specs like 1,000 minimum, no load, above average 3 year performance, minimum 4 or 5 Morningstar ratings, and below 1% annual expenses.... this search yielded 114 funds! Now many of these were bond funds, but it looked like about 1/2 were equity/stock funds. You can also select only equities to eliminate the bond listings. http://mutualfunds.about.com/gi/dynamic/of...ndSelector.html

Do you have earned income? How old are you? What kind of retirement/investment options do you currently fund? How many dollars are in the bonds? What is your current tax rate? What is your investment knowledge and risk tolerance? If you put the cash out funds in a Roth, what kind of investments were you considering? When do you expect to retire? Do you have emergency funds stashed away, and if so how many months income? If these were given to you as a kid and you have not started any systematic investing program the answer might be very different then if you were in your 60s and well funded for retirement. These funds could be the basis for initial investing or could be part of your emergency funds. You need to provide a little more information about your circumstances before folks can make some suggestions.

I am a stock analyst and a stock picker, but I don't recommend that folks get started by buying individual stocks. Reasons: 1. even in this era of internet commisions you are going to pay too much on small lots 2. you are not likely to have enough assets to be diversified across industries or geographically 3. stock picking eats up a lot of time - are you prepared to spend hours reading company files, annual reports, plus listening to the quarterly conference calls? I sometimes get ask what I think about a stock. I throw the question back - what exactly do you know about this company? HDQ city? CEO? Recent quarterly earnings? Major competitors? Lawsuits? How safe are their products? Will they soon become technologically obsolescent? What factors will drive the price of their stock higher? I set this minimum standard - if you can't talk for 5 or more minutes without notes about a company, you don't know enough to own shares. I apply a 30 minute standard to myself. I would highly recommend developing an initial portfolio of mutual funds. Keep it simple. By the way, there are other issues besides account fees to consider in choosing a brokerage. Bad execution of trades can cost you more than an annual fee. Same with commisions or margin interest rates. You have to look at many aspects of a brokerage to see if they are a good fit. Janet jokes about the crystal ball - what you really need to be a good investor is a keen eye for important facts, math skills, patience, research skills, an emotional detachment (avoiding panic and euphoric swings) and lots of hard work.

You have struck on a good idea to consider. Last time I looked, Etrade didn't want the under 18 Roth business. Schwab said "no problem". You will get different answers from different custodians. Apparently some brokerages have problems with a Roth also being a custodial account. I opened Roths for my daughters based upon newspaper routes - their first jobs. Those accounts are doing very well almost 10 years later. They have a cluster of mutual funds and are getting their first lessons about investing... which is probably worth more in the long run than the initial assets. Bear in mind, there may be some impact on college financial aide applications - but that's eight years from now and who knows what rules will apply at that time. You also have the often overstated "rogue kid turning 18 problem", which if you are doing a good job as a parent is a low probability. A low initial balance will be another hurtle. Try each of these ways to get around the problem: (1) some mutual funds are eager for Roth business and will accept lower initial deposits for these accounts, (2) if you get email notification and statements (which saves a lot of postage) you may have fees or minimums waived, (3) if you set up a systematic monthly deposit plan, initial deposits amounts are often waived, (4) just ask for the custodian to waive the minimum... some will, especially if you have other business with them and (5) wait until next January and make an initial deposit to cover both this year and the next (even before the income is "earned"). You are in the ball park on the 700K, but that understates what you child may achieve if once they have a full time job they max out the 4000 or higher amount each year. For example, 4K a year for 40 years could build about 2 million... and if you daughter marries someone who gets off to an early start you can make that 4 million. That's a lot of future potatoes even after you factor in inflation. PS: I expect that SS in some format will be around for many decades, but I just would not count on it as a primary source of income in retirement. Ditto on most pensions, unless they are portable. Folks just change jobs, re-educate, and switch fields too many times. My dad worked for AT&T for 44 years, I don't know too many people that follow that path anymore.

ETFs - this stands for exchange traded funds. ETFs are something of a clone of mutual funds. They trade during the day and are priced by market forces rather than end of day NAV (net asset value) like mutual funds. Some ETFs have very low annual expenses... but so do some mutual funds. Most ETFs are viable investment choices, but it is very important that the investor understand what they are buying. To say you can tolerate more risk and that you prefer ETFs is an odd statement. Within the domain of mutual funds and ETFs, there is a wide range of risks. Both of these investment approaches have some level of diversification, but that ranges from very broad diversification with "Spiders" or S&P500 Index mutual funds to very narrow (but still some level of diversification) with sector specific or country specific type funds and ETFs. The broader defined versions have primarily market based risk - is the market moving up or down - since most ETFs hold equities (aka stocks). More risk with more volatile versions - sector specific (like genetic engineering, software, or retail). More risk with geographically narrow versions - Turkey, Malaysia, Japan portfolios. WARNING: Some of the newly developed ETFs are not suitable for beginner investors and probably not suitable for inactive investments (such as retirement accounts). There are a number of ETFs that now attempt to achieve 200% of the results of their assets by using leverage. And, there are ETFs that allow you to "short" the defined pool. I seem to recall there was even a commodity style ETF. The number of ETFs have expanded dramatically in the past two years. It all started with "spiders", "diamonds" and easily understandable investment pools. The ETF trend is toward developing more tightly defined niches with exotic formulations. Caveat emptor! I would argue that some ETFs are much harder to understand than a mutual fund, so ETFs are no short cut to investing. Read the background documents. (most brokerages and Yahoo finance now include research materials on ETFs and Googling is highly recommended by me). I gave a presentation at InvestFest (a niche investor annual forum of moderate to sophisticated investors that's been held for 5 times) in San Diego earlier this year on ETFs. See the attached power point presentation. Navigating_The_ETF_Universe_Powerpoint.ppt

Post again if you have more questions. There are plenty of "forums" on the web... although the quality varies considerably. On the low end of the quality range is Yahooland. Higher up on the quality ladder is www.valueforum.com (VF). I participate in this forum with about 1400 total members. It is probably best for someone with a medium to high level of investment experience. Its a fee based message board - what you get is a well organized a disciplined discussion group. Because of the fee system and internal policing by members, touting, bragging, vulgarity, insults, and vapid posts are all but eliminated. Members include professionals, former executives, retires, a couple of hedge fund players, and plenty of streetwise investors. This group does not cover medicine, computers, technology or communications very well. Rather the focus is more on natural resources, dividend paying stocks, global companies, shipping and to some extent momentum/sector investing. There are other sites like silicon investor, investor village, etc. I would not be surprised if almost every sector has some message board for investors if you look hard enough.

Actually, FDRXX is in my opinion a bad choice for you. This is a simple money market account - you are getting a low interest rate. This is not a bond or stock fund. It basically has IOUs. As such, your expected returns are barely above the rate of inflation. So, put your money in now and you have about the same buying power down the road. Very safe.... until you consider the corrosive effects of inflation. This fund choice is not likely to support your long retirement goals because of its meager returns. It is hard to figure how Fidelity could point you to this account given you have many decades of investing ahead of you and you said you had some tolerance for risk. Perhaps this choice was forced because you did not meet the minimum begining contribution for some funds. If you have a reasonable tolerance for risk and if you understand that equities (aka stocks) go up and down but over the long haul tend to perform better than simple IOUs... then you should switch funds. Fidelity has hundreds of funds. You are looking for probably just 1 for now. When you assets grow beyond perhaps 10,000 you might want to find a second choice. Note, some folks choose a general purpose fund and may stick with it even when their assets are in six or seven figures because the fund itself is diversified. I would stay away from the narrowly cast Fidelity funds - sector funds (like metals or health care) or narrow geographic funds (like those that just focus on Canada or Japan). "You're in charge, so the choice is yours". Here are three examples of Fidelity funds. They represent a 60%, 85% and nearly 100% commitment to stocks. Each have been in the top 1/4 of their catagory in performance and have below average annual expenses. They have $2,500 minimums for retirement accounts. No recommendation here, these are just examples. Fidelity Balanced (FBLAX): always at least 60% stock, currently 65% stock, 35% bond 0.61% annual expenses 90% USA based investments 3200 holdings (top ten account for 13% of fund) Fidelity Four in One (FFNOX): This fund is comprised of four Fidelity Fund - 55% Spartan 500, 15% Intenational, 15% Mid/small size companies and 15% bonds. annual expenses of 0.23% Fidelity Disciplined Equity (FDEQX): This fund has 99% of its holdings in equities. About 93% are domestic companies (USA based) annual expenses of 0.93% Just 100 companies so this is a concentrated fund, top 10 holdings equal 32% of total assets. Remember, "you're in charge" and you need to dedicate a 1 or 2 hours each month to learning more about investing and monitoring your assets. A subscription to Money or Kiplinger Financial magazines is a good start on your education. While the prospecti are mandated by SEC and definitive explainations of all things Fund, you should spend more time on line looking at the fund summaries Fidelity provides. Some folks call these Report Cards. Yahoo Finance and Morningstar are other sources of fund data. Fidelity Freedom Funds are part of the recent wave of "Target" funds developed by the industry to address the concerns of novice investors. They are mostly gimics, and frankly, to the extent that they encourage novices to not think about what they are doing... well that's a dis-service to the customer. Anything that puts you on autopilot (mixing the balance between equities and bonds) is making assumptions about what is best for you. I content that you should be doing that thinking. You can search the word "Target" on this message board and read other comments about these funds.

On what date was this account opened?

All of the above and more..... Custodians often will reject this kind of transaction. First, because it requries special handling and therefore rings up some costs. Second, because they may be risk adverse for all sorts of reasonable and silly reasons. Depending upon what kind of stock/company you may be talking about, you could run into some issues with Reg "D", sophisticated investor, and/or qualified investor. There are barriers to just creating stock and selling it. Some states have "blue sky" rules that might allow you to own this stock. Others restrict individual ownership of traded stock to those listed on an exchange. There is a difference between owning stock in a Sub S corp, or regular corporation that you have founded and trying to buy stock in an unregistered company. The range of circumstances is gigantic and you provided little details. Are we talking Cargill (which I think is the largest privately held company in the world) or some mom & pop Sub S corp. Feel free to post more details, but what you really need to do is find someone in your state who is familiar with secuity laws. Ask your accountant for a reference, or try you local bar for a lawyer that is familiar with major corporate structurings and securities laws... this is a narrow part of general business law.

Gracey, you got a lot of good input in the above comments although it took a few authors to cover the topic. My question to you is: "were these responses helpful?" We try hard to give practical advice on this message board, but its always nice to get some feedback from the user. Please post again. And, feel free to post additional questions.