What is your financial persons advice really worth?
Q & A with my readers
Question: Dear Mr. Wigen, what do you hope to gain from writing on your blog website? Seth, from Seattle, WA
Answer: Dear Seth, by writing on my blog site, I am hoping people start demanding of their financial advisor some accountability. Do you really want to take your life savings and hand it over to a financial advisor who you know nothing about and have no idea what their advice is really worth? Probably not!! When looking to buy a mutual fund, you can go back and look at the funds performance over a period of time, assuming the portfolio manager has been running the fund over that same time period, to get an idea of whether or not you want to invest in that fund.
With financial advisors, you don’t know how to evaluate their advice. How many financial advisors were telling you to buy into the market in September of 2007, the peak of the market, only to watch your investments tumble down over 40% in the next year? To me, there are financial salespeople, and financial advisors. Financial salespeople get paid once they put your money into the market, whereas, financial advisors are paid a percentage of your overall account value, so they have no vested interest in watching your account go down in value, as their advisory fees would decline as well. But even with that arrangement, what is a financial professionals advice really worth?
By writing on my blog website, I am hoping people will read my posts over a period of time and see what I have said about the markets and judge for themselves what my advice is worth. I started my blog site on February 2, 2009, a year ago along with the WHI Growth & Income fund, so my readers could see the types of stocks I am buying and my overall thoughts on the markets and the economy. In January, 2007, I was telling clients that the dark clouds were moving in and I am putting much of their account in a money market, which at the time was paying a yield of 5%. At the time, many clients were worried I was being to conservative, then in December, 2007, the market started crashing and many of my clients were happy we had large portions of their money out of the stock market and sitting in a money market account, earning 5%.
If my blog site was up in 2007, I can assure you many of you would have read my entries cautioning you about the markets and the economy, and you would have realized late in 2007, my advice to move out of the market and into cash was dead accurate. Investors today are to quick to give up on a strategy, which is why they must feel comfortable with the guidance from their financial person, whether a financial salesperson or financial advisor.
I know how to manage money, I have been a financial advisor since 1996, a portfolio manager since 2000, and have been through two markets which hit all time highs, and two markets which fell close to Depression lows. This blog will allow my readers to go through the archives on my site and see what I have been advising since February 2, 2007, and recognize they can trust my opinions regarding the stock market more than their current financial salesperson or financial advisor. Remember, not many people in the investment industry get paid to tell you to take money out of the stock market, I do. I am paid a percentage of my clients accounts, and have no reason to watch any of my clients lose money.
The big financial firms hire advisors to go out and bring in money, not sit and manage their clients money, which is why the industry uses mutual funds and managed accounts. I should know, I was involved in running the training program at Merrill Lynch and Prudential Securities (then Wachovia Securities) in the Dallas / Ft. Worth area, before starting my own Investment Advisory firm in 2005.
Financial professionals are great at telling you to hang in there and that the market will come back in down markets, but why do you never find a financial person telling you to get out of the market when the market is at all-time highs? Because when it comes down to it, there are far more financial salespeople out there than financial advisors, and that is how the big international investment firms like it!
Do you like it? If not, I would be happy to help you create a customized portfolio based on what annual return you need from the stock market, getting you and your spouse into and through retirement. I would be happy to run a FREE financial plan for any of my readers, simply email me and ask me to send you a financial planning questionnaire.
If you would like me to review your portfolio, have me give you a second opinion on your investments or hire me to be your Financial Advisor/Portfolio Manager, please email me at JimWigen@GetWealthyStayWealthy.com. Continue to check my website for updates on stocks I am buying and selling for my clients.