and in light of
@Jagdaddy post as well as earlier posts about financial advisors.. I can't stress enough to ensure your advisor is experienced.. and I'd say, practicing during the 2008 crush... and ideally in 2002 as well... because when the market hits the inevitable 'adjustment' newer advisors will still be focused on 'growth' ie lassoing new clients and you could be collateral damage by the distraction... experienced advisors will more likely be more focused on their accts.. they always are aware of clients ranked by their assets.. and when it hits, they will address them highest to lowest in order..
you can go to FINRA.org and look the advisors up by name and firm.. that will tell you how long they have been practicing and if there are any blemishes on their record.. next ask your advisor how many accts are they servicing... if they say anything over 150 accts be cautioned because when it hits they can probably get to 20-30 accts a day and if they have 400 accts, lots of accounts are gonna get crushed before you get a call.. some of these advisors could have 1000 accounts.. that means the last folks in that list aren't being serviced for 2 months post thus are toast
I just logged in again for first time in forever and found this thread. I’m looking forward to reading the rest as I’m only on page 2.
To address this post, as someone in the arena - this isn’t accurate necessarily. I won’t say outright wrong but I will say more context is certainly needed.
1. Experience always helps, yet isn’t a panacea. Many times the junior advisors have much more time to handle calls/respond to issues, etc. If you have any assets at all, chances are you won’t be working with a junior advisor and if you do, he will be supervised by his boss.
2. MUCH more importantly - discretionary accounts, which is how we run 98% of our business, are handled behind the scenes. All of those accounts are traded with block trading when we make any adjustments in a portfolio. We can/do make adjustments either in between regular inv committee meetings or after meeting - no client contact needed.
3. Why? Because we have our clients in the proper risk tolerance. Everyone WANTS all the upside and no downside, but I’d like to own Augusta and have membership of 1. Not realistic. Focusing on downside vs upside showing real world returns in various market environments is a real eye opener when people see the possibility of their portfolio being down X% - X being a rather large number. Real world dollars declining hurts more to see it, rather than seeing -27% for example.
There’s soooo much more to add here but I’m limiting myself based on many complicated rules and regulations in our industry. I like my job, no need to jeopardize it.
4. I guess I’ll add there is NO one right way to run a business in this space. I still know of one old school “stockbroker” who is doing just fine. I know insurance only people, commission based folks, etc. I have my strong opinions but won‘t get into them here.