[pico]

not sure about your experience...but if you ever had opened an account at one of those big financial houses, you'll probably experienced this.

when you open a account at, let's say, merril lynch, you're assigned a financial advisor. the advisor always seem to be pushing you to buy funds...more precisely merilly lynch funds. i can't help to be sceptical about this, but i seem to have the feeling that the financial advisor is not having my best interest in mind rather than his/her best interest. i think the financial advisor gets paid by how much a company's fund they can sell to their clients. so if you want to buy a regular cd, they'll probably want you to buy Merill Lynch Money Market Fund instead. if you want to buy a emerging market etf, they'll want you buy merill lynch emerging market fund instead. and when i ask them if i can buy another company's fund...say AIM or Vanguard, they always say there is extra fee and they don't know how much would it cost in fee to be precise.

am i been paranoid or this is pretty much the industry practice? i think those financial advisors are pretty much salesmen/salewomen and not really advising me anything.

[ShamsWoof10]

IMO I believe you are right they do push things they are tied to... Their interest or most of them at least is in their comission... Trade and buy what you want... I made it very clear that I will take advice but I gave them the "don't tell me what to do" atitude and they don't say much anymore...

Four years ago I told TWO of my friends to get into commodities and both told me they asked their broker (financial advisor for the other) about it and was told it was a horrible idea... Well look were they went... Niether delt with them so they won't push them....

[JBC77]

When you work for a fund company you get incentive based bonuses to push certain products. Every few months new financial vehicles come out, you study them and sell them.

Some even have rolling commissions. Where if you sell a customer a certain product, the broker will get a % every year for a fixed amount of years.

Some of the products are decent. I remember one popular with school teachers was a fixed annuity which paid like 5-9% fixed. Some were half fixed rate/half market based. So if the market returned 12-15% on a given quarter or year add your 9% guarantee.....it adds up. especially if you have 500k-1mil invested.

Just study the prospectus before you buy anything. Brokerage houses do offer some competitive financial vehicles.

[THE HITMAN]

Your thoughts are rumbling down the right set of tracks, Picoman

[pico]

what is going on here. 3 people posted and all three posts are edited. i have never seen something like this.

if it is competitive then i have no problem with it. since merilly lynch emerging market fund, aim emerging market fund, and ubs emerging market fund all serve the same purpose. i doubt one fund outperform the other one by that much.

my gripe with financial advisor is that are they really advising on my behalf or trying to turn my account into their commission money tree? i have no problem paying commission at all because pretty much fund are either front-load or back-load with some kind of annual commission. what i am afraid of is that they're trying to sell me the fund with the highest commission rather than what is most appriopriate for my investment objective.

where is the check and balance here? don't tell me the only check and balance is adam smith's invisible hand.

[ShamsWoof10]

what is going on here. 3 people posted and all three posts are edited. i have never seen something like this.

if it is competitive then i have no problem with it. since merilly lynch emerging market fund, aim emerging market fund, and ubs emerging market fund all serve the same purpose. i doubt one fund outperform the other one by that much.

my gripe with financial advisor is that are they really advising on my behalf or trying to turn my account into their commission money tree? i have no problem paying commission at all because pretty much fund are either front-load or back-load with some kind of annual commission. what i am afraid of is that they're trying to sell me the fund with the highest commission rather than what is most appriopriate for my investment objective.

where is the check and balance here? don't tell me the only check and balance is adam smith's invisible hand.

My advice to you is to continue asking for opinions here and elsewhere and compile more research on your own then YOU make a decision on what you are most comfortable with.. I totally disagree with taking the advice of those advisors...

Checks and balances don't exist where corruption does... I edit to either expand on a thought, better organize it, or check spelling...

[pico]

My advice to you is to continue asking for opinions here and elsewhere and compile more research on your own then YOU make a decision on what you are most comfortable with.. I totally disagree with taking the advice of those advisors...

Checks and balances don't exist where corruption does... I edit to either expand on a thought, better organize it, or check spelling...

personally i like vanguard and etfs. i am kind of skeptical on those fund managers. i don't think all those extra fees give me any better returns.

[ShamsWoof10]

I agree for now on ETF's and you definately have an opinion about this and it must have came from somewhere... Research is my guess but expand on this opinion... I'm sure you'll make the right choice...not listening to them is a good start... My specialty is commodities but there are some sharp guys on here who's insight may have value to you.. Ganch, JC, DHorse, even JJ knows some.... I am sure there are a couple others I am missing...

What happened to "Capitalist_Pig"... havne't seen him in a while...

[jjgold]

They are just touts and trying to get commissions on transactions, most of them are bad news.

No need to have one unless your not too bright or have millions to throw around

[pico]

They are just touts and trying to get commissions on transactions, most of them are bad news.

No need to have one unless your not too bright or have millions to throw around

if you have millions to throw around and bright do you still need them? can they offer you anything extra...other than touts?

[pico]

If you have a lot of cash, $500,000+++, let a private bank handle it. They charge a fee but still give you 2 or 3 points higher than the average financial advisor.

Here's one I recommend:

http://www.gibraltarbank.com/

I know for a fact you need to put up $500,000 to open an account here.

Good luck!!!

if you have that much money why not go to switzerland and open an account there. i am pretty sure you save a lot more on tax plus swiss financial advisors are pretty well educated so they can manage your money as well as the private bankers in florida.

[pico]

Im here, just have had waves for the 1st time in a month, so Ive been surfing.

All brokerage houses make their money off your money. IMO, with anything less than several million, you arent getting what you are getting charged for. The top dogs in brokerage houses, would laugh at you if you walked in with less than several million. In this business you really do get what you pay for.

Im a big fan of investing in a S&P fund over time, never buy all the shares at once. Say you have a 100k, you should put 10k in a year for a 10 year period. This way you catch the markets ups and downs, and should get a decent average over time.

You dont need to pay fees, open an online account at E-trade or whatever brokerage house you like and set up an account. Then set it up to buy X amount of shares every month, and do this over 10 years. In 20 years + you should be sitting pretty good. Sounds very boring, but in the markets boring is the way to go. All just my opinion.

Later

thanks. what if you just hit a jackpot and stumped upon a million dollars? that is not enough to get yourself a wealth manager, but enough to get yourself a cut rate financial advisor. will they just going to tell you diversity your money into fixed income and equities based on their little chart that they got during orientation day?

yes, small investment on index based instruments is the way to go for the long term. but what if you got a lumpsum cash right now? how would you divid up in to different investments?

[SBR_John]

Yes they are commission based salesmen but merril lynch has good products and an ole boy could do worse. It depends on you though. Its pretty easy to pick top no-load funds from morningstar. Or for young guys I'd recommend investing half on your own through top rated funds and let merril or someone like them invest the other half. Give it a few years to learn and measure some results.

[dodif]

Yes they are commission based salesmen but merril lynch has good products and an ole boy could do worse. It depends on you though. Its pretty easy to pick top no-load funds from morningstar. Or for young guys I'd recommend investing half on your own through top rated funds and let merril or someone like them invest the other half. Give it a few years to learn and measure some results.

[ShamsWoof10]

Im here, just have had waves for the 1st time in a month, so Ive been surfing.

Just wondered what happen to ya' I hope you enjoyed the waves... Interesting post...