Investment Manager fees

[oldcrowcall]

About 1 year after I retired I gave a large chunk of my retirement portfolio to an investment manager. He has done a good job but charges 1% of the balance as a fee. I recently realized that this would amout to 1 million over the next 30 years. I could do a lot with that over that time. So could my heirs. Should I just put everything in a balanced fund and forget it?

[BigMoneyJim]

Yes.

As long as you have a basic understanding of what you're doing, I see no reason to pay somebody 1% in addition to whatever brokerage fees and mutual fund loads & fees he incurs while managing your money.

You can pick one balanced fund or you could make your own mix of funds by stock, bond, sector, etc..

If you knew enough to accumulate enough to retire, find this board and ask that question I'd bet you're better off ditching the manager.

[trumpeting_angel]

I found an asset manager who takes a (pretty small) flat fee (http://www.evansonasset.com/index.cfm?Page=19) and another one (http://www.portfoliosolutions.com/fees.html) whose percentage fees are very small.

Both of these companies use DFA, which is the only reason I was considering asset management. Keep reading (and try doing a search on Dimensional Fund Advisors - DFA both here and on Google). You will learn a LOT and save more of those millions!

Anne