Bay Capital Advisors is a Registered Investment Advisor but does not maintain physical custody of client assets. The independent third-party role of the custodian is an important safeguard for our clients.

Picking the right custodian was time consuming but not difficult. We looked at Charles Schwab, Raymond James, Bank of America, SunTrust, and Ameritrade. We met with many of the individuals involved, spent many hours using their online capabilities, and, in the end, we concluded Ameritrade was the right custodian for our clients.

It was one of the original online discount brokers and has consistently been recognized as one of the best in the business. Barron's 12th annual survey in 2007 ranked them #1 in the Best Online Brokers category. In 2006, Barron's Review of Online Brokers gave them a four-star rating.

Ameritrade is a large company based in Nebraska with 2007 revenues of over $2.5 billion.  It has a $10 billion market capitalization and holds another $100 billion of assets in custody for investors.

In 2006 Ameritrade completed a merger with competitor TD Waterhouse and became TD Ameritrade, with almost 150 offices nationwide. It now has custody of over $278 billion in assets and averages 238,000 trades per day in over 6,250,000 accounts. We think this increased scale makes it easier for them to maintain the technology lead they now enjoy.

Our obligation is to our clients, not any corporate custodian. We will continue to review their performance. If we ever become concerned, each client will be notified promptly. If appropriate, we will ask clients to move their assets to another custodian.