"Hanging Chads” aka “other follow ups"
First of all, thanks to all of you who have checked in with us regarding the Pfizer Covid 19 vaccine trial which Marci and I are both participating in. We appreciate your interest and we did promise updates!
The update is that all is going according to plan, at least Pfizer’s plan, as far as we can tell. Both of us are 6+ weeks past our second injection and aside from slightly sore arms and more sore bottoms from doing the long drive to the clinic several times in Atlanta traffic, we have experienced no injection side effects. And neither has anyone else we know in the trial. As a reminder, we have no idea if we got the vaccine or the saltwater placebo. With all of you, we are hoping for a positive announcement from Pfizer followed by a positive announcement from the FDA, after all the efficacy and safety data are submitted and reviewed.
I’m sure most of you got the (exciting) email from Ameritrade announcing that the merger with Schwab is now legally complete. As we all know however, now is when the real work begins. We are continuing to be told that the systems integration will take 18 to 36 months and that there will not be any significant changes until then. We are keeping a watchful eye. And we remain committed to do whatever is required so that the work for you is minimal or non-existent during this transition. Feel free to bounce back questions. Our sense is that the Ameritrade operations team knows very little at this point, but that doesn’t mean we can’t ask questions anyway.
And because Ameritrade has nothing else to do, they are retiring the “classic” Advisorclient.com at the end of the month. This change is to enable features which are not supported by the old technology. If you are using the old site, you will be automatically redirected to the new site. It looks different and takes a little getting used to, but the new functionality is good. And you will be able to screen share with us which will make troubleshooting much easier. None of your automatic transactions will be impacted. There is an online demonstration video and we are happy to help too.