Which company to sign up?

[lamchau]

From big names such as eTRADE, americanTrade, Vanguard etc, can we trust companies such as firstrade.com or sharebuilder or scottrade? I am concerned that they might run away my money since I do not know if they are FDIC insured like banks.

Besides that factor, how do I buy the funds? For example, a Roth IRA account would allow me to use 4k for investment. With such number, do I "asset allocate" by distributing the percentages within this IRA (20% or $800, which is for Vanguard 500, and 15% or $600 for Vanguard Small Cap) or do I create additional accounts and buy whatever is left for my "asset allocation." For the latter, if I were to have 20k, I would use 4k in my Roth IRA account to buy the Vanguard 500 and use the additional account to make up the rest of my portfolio? I think the former would make more sense. However, by applying the former, what if I buy a fund for 4k in my Roth IRA at Vanguard and buy the same fund with another account at another company, would my total percentage of the fund counts as my Vanguard fund plus whatever amount of the fund I have in my additional account or does the company does not care of my other assets?

PS. Firstrade sounds like a bargain for stock and index fund trading? Anyone else have other recommendations?

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