RJ

ebdb_bnb said:

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I'd rather not search, but can anyone share what firm SquareOne07 is with?

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He said it a few posts above....Raymond James.

Nobody's immune, all good points and thanks for adding the emphasis on finding somebody you like and trust to do the right things.

Every firm has good folks and every firm has bad folks.

ebdb_bnb said:

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I'd rather not search, but can anyone share what firm SquareOne07 is with?

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He said earlier he's with Raymond James. I believe he's also had swims with EJ and NM.

Stive said:

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ebdb_bnb said:

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I'd rather not search, but can anyone share what firm SquareOne07 is with?

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He said earlier he's with Raymond James. I believe he's also had swims with EJ and NM.

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Correct

Stive said:

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It's typically more about the advisor and your relationship with the advisor than it is about the underlying company name on the sign.


Other than that, I'm checking in for the comments that are coming.

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I swear you are like a bat-signal!

gigemhilo said:

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Stive said:

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It's typically more about the advisor and your relationship with the advisor than it is about the underlying company name on the sign.


Other than that, I'm checking in for the comments that are coming.

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I swear you are like a bat-signal!

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We had an EJ guy come to our door a few years ago. I blew him off but he kept coming back so I figured why the hell not let him give his pitch so we set up a meeting.

Long story short was that We had a sit down and my only 2 options were 1) to give him total control of my investments where he was able to buy and sell things that would benefit his paycheck without having to check with me regardless of fees charged, frequency, etc, or 2) that I could be involved but it would cost me 5% of my gross portfolio as a fee to him PER YEAR. That meant all investments, retirement accounts, inheritance accounts, etc. (so that was a no).

I finally asked if he was a fiduciary, and he skirted the question and got really uncomfortable.

Honestly, I would not turn over my (or your, as advice) to a financial advisor who isn't a fiduciary advisor.

As a side note: I saw a post that said their EJ advisor got them 26% in 2019. While that's great, I saw better returns on my index funds without having to pay the advisor fees. LOOK INTO THE FEES!!

Celee04 said:

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We had an EJ guy come to our door a few years ago. I blew him off but he kept coming back so I figured why the hell not let him give his pitch so we set up a meeting.

Long story short was that We had a sit down and my only 2 options were 1) to give him total control of my investments where he was able to buy and sell things that would benefit his paycheck without having to check with me regardless of fees charged, frequency, etc, or 2) that I could be involved but it would cost me 5% of my gross portfolio as a fee to him PER YEAR. That meant all investments, retirement accounts, inheritance accounts, etc. (so that was a no).

I finally asked if he was a fiduciary, and he skirted the question and got really uncomfortable.

Honestly, I would not turn over my (or your, as advice) to a financial advisor who isn't a fiduciary advisor.

As a side note: I saw a post that said their EJ advisor got them 26% in 2019. While that's great, I saw better returns on my index funds without having to pay the advisor fees. LOOK INTO THE FEES!!

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With all due respect, among other things, he did a terrible job of explaining to you your options with regard to cost if you were left with he impression he would charge you 5% annually. That sounds like it was a ballpark front-end load for A-Shares and those are transactional with MUCH smaller annual expenses attached to it.

With Jones, you were likely looking at a 1.08% - 1.35% annual management fee.

I'm not sure why he wasn't able to articulate how he was acting in a fiduciary capacity, but that he couldn't articulate that was an extremely justifiable red flag for you.

Always always always understand the fees. Beyond that, understand how your advisor is compensated on every single thing that's done.

SquareOne07 said:

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Celee04 said:

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We had an EJ guy come to our door a few years ago. I blew him off but he kept coming back so I figured why the hell not let him give his pitch so we set up a meeting.

Long story short was that We had a sit down and my only 2 options were 1) to give him total control of my investments where he was able to buy and sell things that would benefit his paycheck without having to check with me regardless of fees charged, frequency, etc, or 2) that I could be involved but it would cost me 5% of my gross portfolio as a fee to him PER YEAR. That meant all investments, retirement accounts, inheritance accounts, etc. (so that was a no).

I finally asked if he was a fiduciary, and he skirted the question and got really uncomfortable.

Honestly, I would not turn over my (or your, as advice) to a financial advisor who isn't a fiduciary advisor.

As a side note: I saw a post that said their EJ advisor got them 26% in 2019. While that's great, I saw better returns on my index funds without having to pay the advisor fees. LOOK INTO THE FEES!!

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With all due respect, among other things, he did a terrible job of explaining to you your options with regard to cost if you were left with he impression he would charge you 5% annually. That sounds like it was a ballpark front-end load for A-Shares and those are transactional with MUCH smaller annual expenses attached to it.

With Jones, you were likely looking at a 1.08% - 1.35% annual management fee.

I'm not sure why he wasn't able to articulate how he was acting in a fiduciary capacity, but that he couldn't articulate that was an extremely justifiable red flag for you.

Always always always understand the fees. Beyond that, understand how your advisor is compensated on every single thing that's done.

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It was not that "he gave me the impression" that I would pay 5% annually, in fact he never mentioned it. I had to sift through the fine print to ask the question... "it looks like, according to this agreement, that I'd pay you 5% annually, is that correct? " to which he responded "well yes. To personally manage your investments with your input, that's my fee on that but my investment strategy would make that back plus more".

Celee04 said:

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SquareOne07 said:

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Celee04 said:

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We had an EJ guy come to our door a few years ago. I blew him off but he kept coming back so I figured why the hell not let him give his pitch so we set up a meeting.

Long story short was that We had a sit down and my only 2 options were 1) to give him total control of my investments where he was able to buy and sell things that would benefit his paycheck without having to check with me regardless of fees charged, frequency, etc, or 2) that I could be involved but it would cost me 5% of my gross portfolio as a fee to him PER YEAR. That meant all investments, retirement accounts, inheritance accounts, etc. (so that was a no).

I finally asked if he was a fiduciary, and he skirted the question and got really uncomfortable.

Honestly, I would not turn over my (or your, as advice) to a financial advisor who isn't a fiduciary advisor.

As a side note: I saw a post that said their EJ advisor got them 26% in 2019. While that's great, I saw better returns on my index funds without having to pay the advisor fees. LOOK INTO THE FEES!!

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With all due respect, among other things, he did a terrible job of explaining to you your options with regard to cost if you were left with he impression he would charge you 5% annually. That sounds like it was a ballpark front-end load for A-Shares and those are transactional with MUCH smaller annual expenses attached to it.

With Jones, you were likely looking at a 1.08% - 1.35% annual management fee.

I'm not sure why he wasn't able to articulate how he was acting in a fiduciary capacity, but that he couldn't articulate that was an extremely justifiable red flag for you.

Always always always understand the fees. Beyond that, understand how your advisor is compensated on every single thing that's done.

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It was not that "he gave me the impression" that I would pay 5% annually, in fact he never mentioned it. I had to sift through the fine print to ask the question... "it looks like, according to this agreement, that I'd pay you 5% annually, is that correct? " to which he responded "well yes. To personally manage your investments with your input, that's my fee on that but my investment strategy would make that back plus more".

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That's just...wow.

Celee04 said:

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As a side note: I saw a post that said their EJ advisor got them 26% in 2019. While that's great, I saw better returns on my index funds without having to pay the advisor fees. LOOK INTO THE FEES!!

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If the only value you see in an advisor is rate of return you are better off going online IMO because you are right that index funds are going to deliver a pretty competitive return without the fees to offset.

What you have to remember though is a quality advisor isn't going to generate value in the return only.

That's probably 10% of the value. The other 90% is in taxes, estate planning, insurance, risk and cash flow, long term care planning etc.

I can't imagine EJ allows discretion on non-advisory accounts. Right?

nactownag said:

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Celee04 said:

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As a side note: I saw a post that said their EJ advisor got them 26% in 2019. While that's great, I saw better returns on my index funds without having to pay the advisor fees. LOOK INTO THE FEES!!

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If the only value you see in an advisor is rate of return you are better off going online IMO because you are right that index funds are going to deliver a pretty competitive return without the fees to offset.

What you have to remember though is a quality advisor isn't going to generate value in the return only.

That's probably 10% of the value. The other 90% is in taxes, estate planning, insurance, risk and cash flow, long term care planning etc.

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Not sure if you've ever seen this, but Vanguard published a paper estimating the value of an advisor of about 3% of your portfolio with half of that being attributed to behavioral coaching.

http://static.twentyoverten.com/the-added-value-of-financial-advisors.1465329922518.pdf

The Lurker said:

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I've never known a successful advisor who talks down about the competition. Seems to only happen with struggling trainees and whole life insurance salesmen.

I would add to the point of choosing the advisor not the firm to pick an advisor with at least five years of experience. As some on here can attest I believe the industry average is around 15% of advisors are still around after five years. So chances are the inexperienced advisor will not be around.

Some end up being at three different firms in three years because they spend their time trolling successful advisors on an anonymous Internet forum.

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I like how your first comment is directly contradicted by your second two bits.

If you're interested in a conversation rather than anonymously insulting another Aggie, I invite you to send me a message.

Also, I'm not sure what negativity you derived from my post to nactown directed towards him or any advisor for that matter.

Right. That is a fireable offense.

Thanks and that's what I would expect.

Celee04's description of the meeting doesn't add up. Since he mentioned asking about the advisor being a fiduciary, I suspect this meeting occurred within the last 2 years. Option 1 describes a discretionary relationship but mentions "benefiting his paycheck w/o having to check with me." The advisor doesn't make transactional compensation in an advisory relationship. It would be a fixed or tiered schedule of some sort based on AUM.
Option 2 describes an advisory relationship but then references a 5% advisory fee. I'm not familiar with EJ's various advisory programs and their respective Schedule As, but I would be completely shocked if they permit fees up to 5%....3% would be high today. I'd venture to say Celee has some details mixed up.

They don't

Of course there are always those that still sell A shares which have a max 5.75% fee one time so maybe that is what he is referencing.

Also the fact that they had an EJ guy come to their door tells me it was a brand new FA or at least one with less than five years of experience and not a CFP. At least there's a high probability.

Harkrider 93 said:

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Most likely your own stuff isn't diversified as well as the EJ or other asset firms would be. If you want your account to outperform the S&P 500, tell your advisor that. They may not want to do this due to the risks, but there are plenty of investments that have a history of beating the S&P 500.

You won't find many advisors that do it because we are investing for an end goal. Getting a consistent return allows you a much greater chance of reaching the end goal. If your goal is to just outperform an index, then that is drastically different than an end goal.

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Aside from a couple of stocks in specific companies I only deal in vanguard ETFs. I'm plenty diversified. I also have told my EJ advisor what I want and I consider my EJ account to be my highest risk. The results still have never delivered and I pay high fees to get it.

As I said before I like having a financial advisor on other issues but I would never recommend putting all my money in EJ.

A better way to put it is diversified in a similar fashion. Compare your results to the Vanguard Target Retirement 2060. Almost all firms recommend a portfolio similar to a Target Retirement. I would bet you aren't close to that allocation.

I don't blame you for being more aggressive, but to me, it isn't a fair comparison.

One thing about Target Date type of advice (same advice EJ and most others give), I think it is way too
conservative. Even the 2060 fund has 10% in bonds.

Ed Gelton said:

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Most of you in the index fund militia won't stick to your plan when **** hits the fan, and you'll make terrible, panicky decisions during critical moments. This is fact, not an opinion A good advisor guides you through those periods, keeps you on track, and takes the emotion out of investing for you.
That's the single biggest value, and the value FAR exceeds what you pay for it over the course of your life, even if the fees were on the higher end of the spectrum. Doesn't even include the tax, estate, and insurance planning for higher net worth individuals.

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THIS

The market has been great since 2008, so of course and index fund will make you look like an investing genius. But when it tanks again, you will wish you were more diversified. It isnt always about max returns. And if you try to time the market, you will eventually get burned.