Can anyone recommend a reliable financial advisor?|Finance Management|Forum on Investments and Cryptocurrency.|Allcryptoanswers

There are good people and bad people and some who are trying to be good, but who are either not skilled in the areas or just not good for you. And of course, there are a few people who are just evil. In the world of finance, those are the people who make the headlines (you don’t normally hear about the evil plumbers of the world).

That said, I would start with a fiduciary because at least they have chosen a model of a higher standard of accountability. Brokers, which are the representatives at the large banks, have a standard of “suitability” meaning that as long as they put you into something suitable and disclose the risks, their liability is limited.

Fiduciaries, independent Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs), have a higher standard. They much try to put you into the best product they can with the knowledge that they have. By law they must put the clients’ needs first.

An example of the difference is that if two mutual funds, which are exactly the same (run by the same people with the same strategy and the same investments) except for that one of the funds pays the brokers a trailing fee (usually unbeknownst to the client) and one doesn’t, the one that pays out the trailing commissions will under-perform by that paid fee. A broker can (will usually) use the one that pays the fee to himself, and an independent RIA can only use the one that does not pay out a fee.

Sometimes a broker will either put a lot of in-house funds into a client’s portfolio or use a lot of funds from one mutual fund company. But you must realize that no firm has the best strategy for most asset classes (large-cap, small-cap, international, bonds, etc.), so there must be a reason for that broker committing so much of the client’s assets to a particular firm. Usually that answer is in the form of compensation, either overtly through trailing fees or via perks; either way, that strategy is impossible to be the best solution for the client.

In any field there will be people who cheat or simple don’t have the skill set to do a great job, but in looking for an investment advisor, a fiduciary is a good place to start. From there, ask a lot of questions!