Random Notes From All Over -- June 14, 2021

First things first: S&P and NASDAQ rally to records ahead of Fed meeting. Looks like the rally could continue tomorrow.

AAPL: nice day.

CNBC today: all-star investor Rich Bernstein warns bitcoin is a bubble, sees oil as the more (most?) ignored bull market.

North Dakota has been the #2 crude oil producer in the US for nine years now.

Investing: for those with a brokerage account in a regional bank, one piece of advice -- run, don't walk, to Schwab. 

Even if your account is worth only $1,000, it will cost you to $250 to close your account held at a small regional bank. And that's just the beginning of fees. 

Schwab: no fees of that nature. Schwab has no fees simply to maintain an account. For years, before Schwab was available, I paid Merrill Lynch $65 annually for an account. Good, bad, indifferent, that was it, $65 / year. When my father died, his account at the local bank was divided among his five children. It was an incredibly small account.

One day I got a notice from the bank asking me how I wanted to pay the $75 account fee. Considering the bank account was nothing more than a bookkeeping account, I was appalled, having to pay $75 per year to maintain it -- more than what it cost me at Merrill Lynch. It turned out -- that $75 fee was a quarterly fee.

My dad had been paying more than 4x what a Merrill Lynch account would have cost him, and divided among his five children when he died, overnight the bank was getting $375 / quarter simply for bookkeeping. And, yes, I ran, I did not walk, to Schwab. Zero dollars for same service that was going to cost me $300 / year for a brokerage account. The fees remain in place; nothing has changed; except I don't have my brokerage account there any more. And it cost me $250 to close the account.

Director's Cut: I won't be finishing it until tomorrow. At the earliest.