If personal finance is difficult for you, carefully hire a good financial and investment adviser
A previous financial article, “The Solution – ONLY follow financial strategies that are scientific, passive, diversified, savings focused, risk controlled, low cost, and tax efficient,” suggested that investors are much better off with a well-considered financial plan. A stable set of financial beliefs can help you to keep focused and on track throughout your life. This follow-up article discusses how important it is for people to be careful when they select a financial advisor.
If you realize that you need help with your personal financial planning, get a good financial advisor.
However, be very, very careful with your financial advisor selection process. A good financial advisor could make things much better. A poor one could make things much worse. (See: Financial advisor costs and the value of their investment strategies determine your return on investment from these investment advisor services)
Competent, self-directed investors may have less need for a financial advisor, when they adhere to financial planning strategies and investment funds purchasing practices that are similar to those summarized in The Skilled Investor’s “Financial Decision Rules” articles category. By already following more optimal investment returns strategies, they may find it more difficult to justify the cost of a financial planning and investment advisor.
In contrast, individual investors may repeatedly cost themselves substantial sums by making behavioral errors, and these investors could benefit from the assistance of a good financial advisor. For them, the cost of an advisor may be easier to justify, because of their personal finance inefficiencies. Investors with investment behavior problems might pay the advisor’s costs and still come out substantially ahead relative to having done more poorly on their own. (See: Value-added and value-diminishing investor activities and What is the cost to individual investors of sub-optimal portfolio diversification?)
If behavioral control is difficult or implementation is confusing for you, then you should carefully select and hire a good advisor. You will still be the ultimate decision maker, but you can empower your financial advisor to try to keep you in bounds, while you listen seriously to his or her advice. However, if you do decide to hire a financial planning advisor and/or investment advisor, do not take this advisor selection process lightly. The financial advisor you choose could help you to make or break you lifetime financial plan. The Skilled Investor has written expensively on financial advisors to suggest ways that individuals can improve their advisor selection process. (See these articles on Selecting an Advisor and these articles on Regulation of Advisors)
Selecting a financial advisor just because your relative, friend, or neighbor trusts the financial advisor they are using could be a disastrous way to choose an advisor. How do you know that this person did their homework when they selected the advisor that they trust? Many of the advisory scandals reported in the media show that one person trusted the recommendation of another person and on and on. Unfortunately, nobody along this chain of referrals did their homework to check the advisor’s background, competence, and ethics. In the end, they all get taken for a ride on the dead end train of financial greed.
Unfortunately, many people have thrown up their hands at the seeming complexity of doing personal financial planning and investing. They use slipshod methods to quickly pick a financial advisor and hope that this advisor will do what is right for them. Unfortunately, advisor selection is a minefield and lack of knowledge among financial advisors and financial conflicts of interest are major culprits. (See these articles on Payment of Advisors and these articles on Advisor Fraud)
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portfolio diversification
Personal Financial Planning
- October 18 2007 Edition of the Carnival of Financial Planning (
Carnival of Financial Planning - October 18, 2007 Edition
Welcome to the October 18, 2007 edition of the Carnival of Financial Planning.
The Carnival of Financial Planning takes a long-term view of personal financial planning for individuals and families. We focus on efficient and sustainable personal financial planning practices that can lead to lifetime financial security. This [...])
- Avoid Very Large Actively Managed Mutual Funds (
Avoid very large actively managed mutual funds
Big actively managed mutual fund portfolio positions and higher percentage ownership of any company’s bonds or common stock are not good things for actively managed mutual funds. Nor, are these big positions and high percentages good for you.
Large portfolio size constrains how efficiently an actively managed mutual fund can [...])
- Advice on Personal Finance this Week from Personal Finance Blogs (
Financial Blog Articles about Personal Finance this Week
Carnival of Financial Planning - March 7 2009 Edition
Welcome to the March 7, 2009 edition of the Carnival of Financial Planning.
The Carnival of Financial Planning takes a long-term view of personal financial planning for individuals and families. We focus on efficient and sustainable personal financial planning practices [...])
- Do Not Get Fooled by Superior Historical Investment Performance (
Evaluate the historical investment performance of mutual funds and ETFs, BUT ONLY AFTER using other screening criteria
Choosing only from among mutual funds and ETFs that have performed very well in the past can lead to significant selection mistakes and inferior personal portfolio returns
Previous superior or average fund performance simply does not predict similar fund performance [...])
- The Heavy Burden of Recurring Investment Expenses and Fees (
The heavy burden of recurring investment fees (Part 1 of 2)
Recurring investment costs can significantly impact the long-term value of your retained investment portfolio assets.
Recurring fees, such as asset management fees, 12b-1 marketing fees, and advisory/asset custody fees are charged periodically, as a percent of your investment assets. The relative cost-efficiency of your investment portfolio [...])
- Always Completely Diversify Your Investment Portfolio (
Complete portfolio diversification is always a better idea.
On average, the securities markets will not pay you to hold any skewed subset of the overall market. Doing so is just a gamble that may or may not pay off. You should not expect to be paid any more for the added risk and anxiety.
A previous article, [...])
- Diversify To Avoid Investment Fraud (
Another kind of investment diversification that individual investors should consider important relates to the failure or corruption of the financial industry intermediaries and fiduciaries that hold individual investors’ securities.
This meaning of diversification has nothing to do with scientific investment principles related to optimal portfolio diversification. However, it is still very important. Prudent investment practices would [...])
- Understand Your Lifetime Personal Savings Requirements (
VeriPlan helps you to understand your lifetime personal savings requirements and whether your current savings rate is sufficient
How much you earn, spend, and save are by far the most dominant determinants of your long-term financial well-being.
You need a means to evaluate your current sustainable lifecycle consumption rate. VeriPlan provides such a means. VeriPlan projects your [...])
- Assess your personal investment return and risk preferences – Step 3 of 10 Financial Planning Steps in the Right Direction (CLICK HERE TO READ THE SKILLED INVESTOR's OTHER ARTICLES ABOUT THESE "10 FINANCIAL PLANNING STEPS IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION."
Investors with different levels of risk tolerance are more satisfied with investment strategies that are better aligned with their risk preferences.
Differences in investors' personal risk tolerances mean that more risk-averse investors are personally more satisfied with a [...])
- How unstable have stock market returns been over time? (
Common stock equity market returns have varied widely in the past. The common stock equity risk premium has averaged about 4.1% from 1872 to 2000.
The equity risk premium is the equity market return less the risk free rate of return. The risk free rate of return includes both the inflation rate and the risk free [...])
- How Many Mutual Funds are Needed for a Well-Diversified Portfolio? – Evidence (
Actively-managed mutual funds are not created equally. Performance can vary significantly - even when funds pursue similar strategies or "styles."
This article addresses the impact on portfolio diversification of holding more than one actively-managed mutual fund. (For the companion article to this, see: How many mutual funds are needed for a well-diversified portfolio? – a commentary)
In [...])
- Hitting the Citibank Stone Wall in Polite Conversation (
PIRATES OF THE CREDIT SEA - Part 4: Hitting the Citibank Stone Wall in Polite Conversation
This article continues my personal saga of trying to get Citibank to fix problems with their management of my credit card account with them.
For a summary of the overall situation, go to Part #1: My Treasure Is Taken!
For an article [...])
