December 19, 2019

Basics

How to Fund Your Elm Account

If the ultimate source of funds is currently invested in brokerage assets:

  • You can transfer assets to Elm through the inter-brokerage ACAT network. We’ll take care of liquidating the assets and getting funds invested on the same day, reducing timing risk. If you hold broad-market ETFs or mutual funds, it’s possible we’ll be able to use some or all of these instruments instead of liquidating them.
    • This will generate realized gains or losses in a taxable account. If you share an account statement with us, we can help estimate the tax impact of liquidating your assets.The ACAT transfer can take between 2 days and 2 weeks. We initiate this through Fidelity and you will receive approval paperwork to eSign.
  • You can liquidate assets yourself and transfer cash to your Elm Fidelity account (see below). This allows you to control the liquidation directly, but requires taking market-timing risk between when you liquidate the assets and when we re-invest them.

If the ultimate source of funds is currently in cash or cash proxies:

  • For Non-retirment accounts:
    • If funds are currently outside Fidelity, you can wire funds into your Elm Fidelity account (same-day delivery). Wire instructions can be found on Fidelity.com.
    • If funds are currently outside Fidelity but at another brokerage, we can pull the funds into your Fidelity account through the ACAT network (1-3 days typical processing time). We initiate this through Fidelity and you will receive approval paperwork to eSign.
    • If funds are currently in another Fidelity account, you can instruct Fidelity to transfer the funds into your Elm Fidelity account ($200k/day limit online, no limit over the phone), or we can prepare a Journal Request form for your signature (1 day processing time).
  • For Retirement accounts:
    • If funds are currently outside Fidelity but at another brokerage, we can pull the assets into your Fidelity account through the ACAT network (1-3 days typical processing time). We initiate this through Fidelity and you will receive approval paperwork to eSign.
    • If funds are currently in another Fidelity account, you can instruct Fidelity to transfer the funds into your Elm Fidelity account ($200k/day limit online, no limit over the phone), or we can prepare a Journal Request form for your signature (1 day processing time).