I opened a Roth IRA at Fidelity recently. My main retirement savings is elsewhere in a 403b, but I thought this would be good to buy a little stock. I was pleasantly surprised that I could transfer money from my CU checking account and have it immediately available to trade.
I then started thinking about either redeeming my cash back from a couple cards into my Fidelity account and/or getting the Fidelity Visa. I decided I don't really need another CC and particularly didn't want to roll the dice with Elan having recently taken over the Fidelity CC. So I researched and found that I could redeem the cash back from my DC and Discover into an outside bank account so I opened the Cash Management account. (From what I understand I could redeem from Fidelity Visa straight into IRA, but to transfer from another institution, I needed a Cash Management account.) I also thought it might be good to keep a little something in there in case I wanted to quickly add to my IRA/buy some stock in the IRA, as long as I'm opening this other 'checking' account. When I got paid the end of January, I transferred some money to my IRA and some to my Cash Management.
What I wasn't expecting was the money that I transferred to my IRA was immediately available to trade. But I couldn't transfer money from my Cash Management to my IRA for about 4 business days. This is SO counter-intuitive to me.
I'm now thinking there's not really a reason for me to have the Cash Management account. If I want to quickly buy stock in my IRA , I have to move money from some other account anyway. If I want to redeem cash back from DC or Discover, I could just as easily transfer it to another checking and into the IRA. It would be within one interface to do it with the Cash Management account, but it would still be two steps and I think it would be faster with an outside account.
Do you have a Fidelity Cash Management account? Do you use it for your main checking? Supplemental? Do you love it? What am I missing?
(I know about the ATM reimbursement thing but that's not a draw for me.)
