Financial advisor reviews

[Quackerbox]

I'm with Edward Jones as if October. Not overly happy with the guy if someone has a recommendation in tomball area

[friscopaint]

I'm with Edward Jones as if October. Not overly happy with the guy if someone has a recommendation in tomball area

when I was shopping companies they have "advisors" bios on there and some didn't even have finance or economic degrees and totally unrelated ones, not that a degree means everything but these were fairly young people and didn't instill alot of confidence in me

[Canuck]

when I was shopping companies they have "advisors" bios on there and some didn't even have finance or economic degrees and totally unrelated ones, not that a degree means everything but these were fairly young people and didn't instill alot of confidence in me

That was one of the biggest things I found when interviewing potential advisors. The ones reaching out to you or marketing are typically the newer ones still building a client base with under 5y in the industry. The actual talented advisors do not advertise and are found through word of mouth and through friends.

Do not go with any advisor with under 5y experience (preferably 10+) and with less that $2M of assets under management (preferably $5M+). Most quality advisors will also have minimum investment to make you worth their time. Often have seen that number around 1/4 - 1/2 a million at minimum.

[Baethge12]

I'm an FA at Raymond James in North Houston and I will whole heartedly agree with what some of these folks are saying: find someone that you trust and has a strategy that aligns with your needs. To give you a little insight into how payment works when you're meeting with different people: you can have a commission or fee based relationship. Commission generally works out best if you're buying and holding. It is a one time payment that happens when you make the initial purchase. For the sake of diversification, buying and holding is best done with mutual funds or ETF's. These DO have internal expense ratios that are paid out to the fund manager (not the FA) but they can be very high, sometimes upwards of 1%. Unfortunately, I find that a lot of people in my profession don't always explain these internal fees so be sure to ask about that. The other relationship type would be fee based. This is often associated with actively managed accounts or relationships where financial planning, estate, and tax planning is needed. Generally speaking, individual stocks and bonds are best held in a fee based account so it can be traded as much as is needed. Fee amounts are at the discretion of the advisor. Industry average is upwards of 1.25% and some companies will have a floor that is required. To break it down- 1% fee on a $100,000.00 account would be $1,000/year. We assess the fee quarterly to track the performance so you would pay $250/quarter. If your $100,000.00 goes down to $90,000.00 in Q2, you'd pay one quarter of 1% of that $90,000.00 ($225.00). Hopefully this helps and feel free to ask any other questions- happy to help!

[Rick]

I had a FA with Fidelity before i retired, we worked together well and i was very happy. He left Fidelity (after i retired) and i was assigned another FA, i just never felt right about him. I did not know it at the time, but the first guy had gone to an independent firm, he called me when his non compete expired and after some time, i moved my accounts. I get much more personalized service now. I think the guys at the big firms have so many goals and deadlines, their time is limited to really work closely with clients

[brokeno]

Check the fees. You’ll be surprised what their making off you

[7sdad]

Check the fees. You’ll be surprised what their making off you

I pay about $550 per month but I think that’s fair because we are making good money.

[lostbrd]

Appreciate all the input. From what I can tell, it appears typical retirement portfolios are somewhat Mutual Fund based. Fisher is interesting because they pick individual stocks + Ken fisher just seems like a smart guy!