Need Help/advice with Financial Adviser Questions

[urn2bfree]

Welcome to taking charge -as you should-
Like you, I too let myself get intimidated by the jargon for way too many years (and $$$)

Active vs Passive investing can probably be learned about better than I can explain with a simple Google Search, but In a nutshell this is how I understand it:

ACTIVE INVESTOR tries to pick which stocks or funds or sectors will be the best investment on an ongoing basis.
PASSIVE INVESTOR accepts that the market will go up and down but over the long run if you just track the overall market you will go up. This means buying funds or ETF that are just baskets full of lots of stocks that will closely track the indexes like the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones or whatever index you are trying to track.

The key to both is diversity and getting that diversity right. ACTIVE REQUIRES MORE RESEARCH and therefore is more costly in expenses. Fidelity and Vanguard will help you set up a mix for free.
There are some very good inexpensive advisors who will charge you a lot less to run a Passive portfolio for you if you feel picking out the right mix of ETF and Index funds is too much for you.

FINALLY you are correct that it is INSANE and I would say robbery that you have been charged 1.25% on your cash. I would love to hear how you advisor justifies that...and then unless he offers to reimburse you in full you should fire him...on second thought you should still fire him, as soon as possible.

[target2019]

There's a bit to educate yourself about investing principles. So a good book is first on the list. Next, check out the online access to your accounts to gain more understanding of what is there. Select one space (e.g. your IRA) and complete the form to initiate a move of that account to Vanguard or IRA. They can invest your funds in a similar way, if you desire.

What will really help you out is to open a spreadsheet and get serious about the project. Enter every account and fund. Fill in additional columns with type of investment, expenses, and other data. Then try to define the future state. For instance, you may have 100 funds and stocks scattered over several investment spaces. Take your time and develop a plan to move from the past to future state.

The tax implications sound like they will be considerable, so be careful with the non-tax-advantaged accounts. Once you get things in order, the IRAs can be transferred and re-allocated with no immediate tax consequence. With the taxable account(s) I would look at the holdings, dissolve the management agreement, and go slowly down a path of liquidation and consolidation. However, it could be that you have a good array of stocks for the plan you develop, and might want to hold them.

As you reduce the holdings at WF, it is important to get out of the management agreement. Your balance will go down as you transfer out of WF, and the management fee might rise!

[target2019]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PeteW I hear you. Fortunately my broker has not been churning my account. I'm fairly confident that he has personal integrity, but that said, managing accounts is how he makes his money so sadly, I'm sure he believes helping his customers to become well informed and knowledgeable would work to his detriment.

The churning is built-in.

My in-laws have partial management with a company of "integrity." However, the number of funds in three accounts is excessive. There are 16 funds, the same 16 in each account. To meet their conservative investment goals, the adviser (directed by a computer program) sells and buys in each account. The transactions are mostly un-necessary. In this case the transactions cost nothing, as they are all in-house funds, and covered by the yearly fee on the total in all accounts.

As for personal integrity, I see that as a sliding scale. Maybe he has some, but is that enough for you? You didn't mention age, but you are leaving a lot of money on Wells Fargo table. So you're doing the right thing by finding another path.

[mystang52]

In prep for my ER, we will be transferring all of DW's 403B into a rollover iRA, thereby saving the 403B administrator fees of 1%. The 403B rep tried everything to convince me otherwise - first he talked about what a good job he does, and when that didn't work he actually tried to lay a guilt trip on me.
Along the same lines, I don't see where OP's advisor is worth $11,000 a year.

[ChiliPepr]

My advice, before you change anything, is to determine how to calculate the value of your portfolio from your statement. A simple question to ask your advisor is "If I liquidated everything on 11/30/2012 how much money would there be? And how do I find that number on my 11/30 statement?"

Once you can calculate the value of your holdings you can then move on to your returns.

Because your account is actively managed and you may be taking withdrawals and making contributions throughout the year, the return calculation is a bit more complicated. A very good explanation on how to calculate a return in excel can be found at How to use XIRR in Excel to calculate annualized returns | Experiments in Finance

Personally, I am less concerned with management fees and advisor fees than many other people. Here is my reasoning, you have been with this advisor for many years and presumably you could calculate your return for each of these years. For example, if you calculated your average return for the last 10 years with him and it comes out to be 10% annually (after all fees) and looking at a similar portfolio of Vanguard index funds over the same 10 years that basket has a return of 5%, I would say your advisor is doing a hell of a job. If that basket of index funds returned 15% you should be firing your advisor.

[easysurfer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PeteW ... Per easysurfer's comment, I guess I'm easily a passive investor in that I've allowed my broker to call most of the shots, up until now anyway, I'm pretty certain that is about to change. But I am ingredient by his statement that most of the people on this site are "passive investors". Could you please elaborate.

Being a passive investor isn't about how you deal with the broker, but your investment philosophy. Urn2bfree has a good description of passive vs active investing in his post.

For me, a big benefit of passive investing (with index funds) is that it keeps things simple and I focus mainly on my asset allocations instead on whether the investments are managed properly, what if there's change in management. I like simple .

[pb4uski]

Sounds like you are making good progress in getting your hand around this. I couldn't find the "attached pdf", however, based on your description "earned income" would typically be interest and dividends and "value change" would be unrealized gains or losses. Capital gain distributions and realized gains and losses would commonly be included in earned income (or a separate item). A reasonable estimate of your total return, assuming no contributions or withdrawals during the period, would be (earned income + value change)/beginning of period value; then adjusted to an annualized rate if the period is less than a full year.

One question would be whether the 1.25% fee is included in earned income or value change or is entirely separate. If it is not included in earned income or value change then your return would be 1.25% lower than the amount calculated above. The best way to make sure you have everything is to have a rollforward analysis for each account that shows the progression of the beginning value + contributions - withdrawals - fees + interest + dividends reinvested +/- unrealized gains, etc to the ending value.

If you have mutual funds you can look up the expense ratio on the internet if you have the ticker for the fund. What is a reasonable expense ratio depends on the nature of the fund - index funds would have lower expense ratios (0.25% or less) and actively managed funds would be higher (1.0% or more).

If it were me, I would be curious why the SEP IRA accounts are still all in cash and haven't been invested, though I'm sure you will probably get some song and dance.

Active investing, by buying individual stocks and bonds or actively managed mutual funds, tries to generate better than market returns through picking stocks and bonds that generate better returns than the market as a whole. Passive investing refers to simply buying the index and accepting the overall market (or sector) return. There are a lot of studies out there suggesting that after fees, passive investing outperforms active investing over long periods of time.

[PeteW]

Understand_Acct_Statement02Pg4.pdf

I'm hoping that this time I attached the pdf I meant to attach before.

[ChiliPepr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PeteW I found something on the internet (not the WF site) that said you should add these two line together to find your actual gain or loss. I'm still not sure if the "Earned Income is the total of Dividends and interest or if it also includes realized gains and or losses. As for "Value Change" I am not sure if it is just the unrealized gain or loss.

Yes, your "Income Earned" is your amount of dividends and income you portfolio has created, and "Change in value" is your unrealized gain in your portfolio. Combined will tell you how much your actual gain or loss was.

But you have to take into consideration your withdrawals and contributions to determine your true return.

[FinanceDude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by target2019 The churning is built-in.

Please elaborate on how the "churning is built in"............

Quote:

My in-laws have partial management with a company of "integrity." However, the number of funds in three accounts is excessive. There are 16 funds, the same 16 in each account. To meet their conservative investment goals, the adviser (directed by a computer program) sells and buys in each account. The transactions are mostly un-necessary. In this case the transactions cost nothing, as they are all in-house funds, and covered by the yearly fee on the total in all accounts.

Sounds like a bank wrap account. The adviser is probably not doing the buys and sells. The computer rebalances based on the models set by the "investment policy committee". You are paying FAR too much for this plan.

[Midpack]

With all due respect Pete, you're paying way too much on the 1.25% management fee alone. I'm almost afraid to see what other expenses you may be paying. Your broker is undoubtedly friendly, but he/she is not your friend.

As much as we want to help, we're all groping in the dark without seeing your statements - but I am not suggesting you share that personal, private info.

This is going to take a little work on your part, but it is NOT rocket science. Please go to your local library and check out the book below. Just carefully read chapters 7 & 9. Scan other chapters, some may interest you.

[hlfo718]

Based on the sample statement you sent I think the statement is misleading but not illegal since it is lumping the mgmt fee into some other category so you don't see it unless you dig into the statement. I suggest you read up on investing. Start with Rick Ferri's All About Asset Allocation and William Berstein's The Four Pillars of Investing. Your local library should have them. If not then just invest $20 for each and understand them but they are easy read. Once you are comfortable, begin your transition to self manage. This will save you over 2% annually (1.25% mgmt fee + Mutual Fund Fees 1% + Turnover costs 0.5%).

Continue to post your questions here AND Bogleheads.org. Bogleheads is a great site for self managers.

[GrayHare]

target2019 - your plan, while reasonable, is sufficiently complex/tedious that it may overwhelm some and stop them from even starting on the DIY path. It looks overwhelming to me, and I've been DIY for decades.

PeteW - note that it is possible, even probable, you can transfer your account holdings to a broker such as Fidelity or Vanguard without having to sell any of your holdings (stocks, bonds, funds, etc.). That is called an in-kind transfer. It's typically the way I transfer holdings because then I need not worry about the tax consequences that would occur if I had liquidated something. If you call a place like Fidelity or Vanguard they will tell you what (if any) you would need sell before a transfer to them. It might be none, in which case you can keep your holdings as they are and adjust them at a comfortable learning pace.

[Midpack]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GrayHare PeteW - note that it is possible, even probable, you can transfer your account holdings to a broker such as Fidelity or Vanguard without having to sell any of your holdings (stocks, bonds, funds, etc.). That is called an in-kind transfer. It's typically the way I transfer holdings because then I need not worry about the tax consequences that would occur if I had liquidated something. If you call a place like Fidelity or Vanguard they will tell you what (if any) you would need sell before a transfer to them. It might be none, in which case you can keep your holdings as they are and adjust them at a comfortable learning pace.

Very good suggestion. And even more appealing, Vanguard or Fidelity will handle all the transfers on your behalf, you don't have to do anything except authorize Vanguard or Fidelity to proceed. I did it years ago, and I didn't have to sell any of my holdings (funds or stocks). It was totally painless.

[pb4uski]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PeteW Attachment 15553 I'm hoping that this time I attached the pdf I meant to attach before.

The pdf helps. A reasonable estimate of your total return would be as follows:

_________________________(Income earned + Change in value)_______________________________
[Opening value + 50%*(Cash deposited + securities deposited - cash withdrawn - Securities withdrawn)]

and if the amounts above are for less than a full year, then divide the result by the portion of a year the amounts refer to to get an approximate annual rate.

As hlfo718 mentions, it is unclear where the management fees are so that is a question that your broker should be able to answer. If the management fees are netted against the income earned, then you are all set. If they are included in withdrawals, then reduce the return that you computed above by ~1.25%.

[PeteW]

Quote:

Originally Posted by urn2bfree Active vs Passive investing can probably be learned about better than I can explain with a simple Google Search, but In a nutshell this is how I understand it: ACTIVE INVESTOR tries to pick which stocks or funds or sectors will be the best investment on an ongoing basis. PASSIVE INVESTOR accepts that the market will go up and down but over the long run if you just track the overall market you will go up. This means buying funds or ETF that are just baskets full of lots of stocks that will closely track the indexes like the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones or whatever index you are trying to track. The key to both is diversity and getting that diversity right. ACTIVE REQUIRES MORE RESEARCH and therefore is more costly in expenses. Fidelity and Vanguard will help you set up a mix for free. There are some very good inexpensive advisors who will charge you a lot less to run a Passive portfolio for you if you feel picking out the right mix of ETF and Index funds is too much for you.

Thank you I'll Google it as you advised, but that was terrific explanation, Very helpful.

Quote:

Originally Posted by target2019 There's a bit to educate yourself about investing principles. So a good book is first on the list. Next, check out the online access to your accounts to gain more understanding of what is there. Select one space (e.g. your IRA) and complete the form to initiate a move of that account to Vanguard or IRA. They can invest your funds in a similar way, if you desire. What will really help you out is to open a spreadsheet and get serious about the project. Enter every account and fund. Fill in additional columns with type of investment, expenses, and other data. Then try to define the future state. For instance, you may have 100 funds and stocks scattered over several investment spaces. Take your time and develop a plan to move from the past to future state. The tax implications sound like they will be considerable, so be careful with the non-tax-advantaged accounts.

You mentioned a “good book” and suggestions. I'm not sure if you are familiar with the book Work Less, Live More: The New Way to Retire Early by Bob Clyatt. In his book about achieving early or semi-retirement, Bob speaks to a form of investing he calls the Rational Investing approach. His portfolio is comprised mostly of mutual funds and I believe if memory serves many of which are Vangard funds. This seems to fall directly in line with your explanation of passive investing as it requires balancing about every one or two years and that's about it.

I'm completely intrigued by the concept, but I've felt to ignorant to pull the trigger. Thanks to everyone's help I'm beginning to feel a lot less overwhelmed.

About a month ago, using a spreadsheet from his companion workbook my wife and I went through the numerous stocks, ETFs and Bond funds to determine their proper allocations, Large, Mid, Small Cap, Growth, Domestic, foreign, etc. That was quite a chore, but we have that done at least.

Thanks for alert on the tax consequences that could be incurred by making substantial moves. Very good advice to keep in mind. Thinking about it, I'm pretty sure I could end the WF management fees asap by just canceling their management service. Naturally at that point I'd be responsible for all trade charges, etc. and I'm not what else, but I plan to look into this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by target2019 The churning is built-in. My in-laws have partial management with a company of "integrity." However, the number of funds in three accounts is excessive. There are 16 funds, the same 16 in each account. To meet their conservative investment goals, the adviser (directed by a computer program) sells and buys in each account. The transactions are mostly un-necessary. In this case the transactions cost nothing, as they are all in-house funds, and covered by the yearly fee on the total in all accounts.

Yes we've seen the same duplication in all of our accounts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mystang52 In prep for my ER, we will be transferring all of DW's 403B into a rollover iRA, thereby saving the 403B administrator fees of 1%. The 403B rep tried everything to convince me otherwise - first he talked about what a good job he does, and when that didn't work he actually tried to lay a guilt trip on me. Along the same lines, I don't see where OP's advisor is worth $11,000 a year.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChiliPepr My advice, before you change anything, is to determine how to calculate the value of your portfolio from your statement. A simple question to ask your advisor is "If I liquidated everything on 11/30/2012 how much money would there be? And how do I find that number on my 11/30 statement?" Once you can calculate the value of your holdings you can then move on to your returns. Because your account is actively managed and you may be taking withdrawals and making contributions throughout the year, the return calculation is a bit more complicated. A very good explanation on how to calculate a return in excel can be found at How to use XIRR in Excel to calculate annualized returns | Experiments in Finance Personally, I am less concerned with management fees and advisor fees than many other people. Here is my reasoning, you have been with this advisor for many years and presumably you could calculate your return for each of these years. For example, if you calculated your average return for the last 10 years with him and it comes out to be 10% annually (after all fees) and looking at a similar portfolio of Vanguard index funds over the same 10 years that basket has a return of 5%, I would say your advisor is doing a hell of a job. If that basket of index funds returned 15% you should be firing your advisor.

Is the value different than the one they post or appears on the opening and ending balances of my statements?


I've also found an “Activity” tab on my WF account page. On this form I can see all of my account activity for the past 12 months, including management fees. Now I feel dumb for not having looked harder before hand. Now I just need to figure the estimated earnings.

As for doing it for the last 10 years, I'll probably need to have WF provide me that information, it's not available online.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pb4uski One question would be whether the 1.25% fee is included in earned income or value change or is entirely separate. If it is not included in earned income or value change then your return would be 1.25% lower than the amount calculated above. The best way to make sure you have everything is to have a rollforward analysis for each account that shows the progression of the beginning value + contributions - withdrawals - fees + interest + dividends reinvested +/- unrealized gains, etc to the ending value. If you have mutual funds you can look up the expense ratio on the internet if you have the ticker for the fund. What is a reasonable expense ratio depends on the nature of the fund - index funds would have lower expense ratios (0.25% or less) and actively managed funds would be higher (1.0% or more). If it were me, I would be curious why the SEP IRA accounts are still all in cash and haven't been invested, though I'm sure you will probably get some song and dance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChiliPepr Yes, your "Income Earned" is your amount of dividends and income you portfolio has created, and "Change in value" is your unrealized gain in your portfolio. Combined will tell you how much your actual gain or loss was. But you have to take into consideration your withdrawals and contributions to determine your true return.

Yes, the fees are figured on a separate line and no they are not subtracted from the earnings. I had to do that. I guess I also have to then take the period opening amount and subtract any cash from it before I divide it into the total estimated earnings, correct? Also, what would be the math for determining the percentage of the year thus far? (No. of months / 12) ?

Pete

[PeteW]

Oops you guys were busy while I was addressing the previous posts.

[pb4uski]

Glad to hear that the fees are presented separately in the summary. Then just include the fees as a deduction in the numerator.

And yes, percentage of year so far would be number of months (or days, or whatever) dividend by 12.

I would leave the cash in to look at the return in total for cash and investments especially since it sounds like you have a lot of cash earning a negative return after fees (and even more negative after inflation). IOW, the return should reflect that the FA has failed to invest the cash in something more fruitful.

[PeteW]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FinanceDude Please elaborate on how the "churning is built in"............ Sounds like a bank wrap account. The adviser is probably not doing the buys and sells. The computer rebalances based on the models set by the "investment policy committee". You are paying FAR too much for this plan.

Up to the spring of 2009 that is exactly how my accounts were being managed, I called it robo-investing for lack of a more educated term.

I had at least a hundred different stocks and ETFs in each account many of the accounts were closely duplicated. Naturally, like everyone else in America at that point, I was paying lots of attention to our portfolio because the bottom had fallen out. Rightly or wrongly I told my broker to end the "robo" management and to begin discussing trades with me.

Even back then I was trying to make sense of what I had, but eventually frustration brought on by my cluelessness and fact I was managing, and in the process of selling my business, diverted my attention again and again.

At least the constant churning came to end.

[pb4uski]

Your last post has convinced me that you need to run from this broker and get with Vanguard - but you really had me at the 1.25% management fee!!!