It felt good being a first time investor; after reading The Bedokian Portfolio or some other investment books or material, you will feel the urge to jump straight into the action. You may quickly want to open up a brokerage and/or regular savings plan account, start to look for securities to invest in, and voila, you have started an investment portfolio.
Then as the months or years gone by, suddenly you have discovered something; your Company A and REIT Z shares are straddled between your Central Depository (CDP) and your regular savings plan accounts. Your Corporate Bond Q is split between a custodian brokerage and a bond fund brokerage account. If you want to sell say, Company A shares, you may have to incur twice the transaction costs because they are placed in different platforms. Ditto for buying with the added headache of choosing which platform to buy.
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