Financial Advisor??
- Thread starter albireo13
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Al18
Full time employment: Posting here.
Run away - fast 
If you put the name in the Google search box at the top of this page, you'll find dozens of threads that talk at length about Edward Jones. Nobody here would recommend them for a variety of reasons.
Another Reader
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Just about the worst place you could go. Parasites of the highest order.
Choose an advisor who offers a fiduciary relationship instead.
Start here: Financial Advisors & Planning Professionals | CFP - Let's Make a Plan
+1
Better yet, open an account with Fidelity or Vanguard and get a time based fund (I.e. one that diversifies your investments based on when you expect to retire, and all for a low fee/Expense Ratio).
Best yet, take a few weeks and educate yourself on the basics of investing. There’s a forum approved reading list. It will likely give you a huge boost in confidence on handling your own money.
I have a relative who is an FA. he started with EJ. He told me that 99% of their "training" was sales training. Not understanding how different investment vehicles work, but learning to sell.
The company basically said "we'll TELL you what to sell. This is how you sell it"...
I wouldn't touch them with someone else's ten foot pole.
The company basically said "we'll TELL you what to sell. This is how you sell it"...
I wouldn't touch them with someone else's ten foot pole.
What do you need a FA for? Are you having issues with your investments that you need help with? Or are you concerned that you are missing out?
One should know what they are looking for before seeing the sales(man/woman).
One should know what they are looking for before seeing the sales(man/woman).
For most people, having someone else pull the trigger on dropping thousands of dollars into an investment seems somehow safer. Doing it yourself is scary at first. It's scary clicking "Submit" on that $10,000 investment! It's scary when you sometimes have to watch your numbers drop with a drop in the market, and worry that you've made a big mistake that a "professional" would have avoided.
Sure, you can make mistakes investing money yourself, but they can generally be avoided with a little education, much of which is available online. The internet is a great liberator, giving people the means to learn the basics of investing and execute their plans.
Sure, you can make mistakes investing money yourself, but they can generally be avoided with a little education, much of which is available online. The internet is a great liberator, giving people the means to learn the basics of investing and execute their plans.
athena53
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Two huge factors affecting your EJ account.
One is the individual advisor. I started out with a guy who worked there who'd previously been a bond trader on Wall Street so he wasn't just a liberal arts major with sales training. I've followed him from EJ to Morgan Stanley and now to UBS. He knows more about the market than I do and I bought my first stock at age 19 and keep up with financial markets and the world in general through reading and podcasts.
Second- EJ is big on American Funds. If you're not investing much they carry a pretty steep front-end load; 5.75% gets skimmed off the top when you buy in. If you have over $500K that goes down to 2% (there are levels in between). I still have a lot of my money in American Funds; AGTHX and CWGIX in particular have done very well and, amortized over the 15 years I've had them, the front end load doesn't have that much effect.
If I had it to do over again I'd probably just have a portfolio of ETFs and a few individual stocks and periodically re-allocate but I can't complain about where I am and I like getting a second opinion on my portfolio.
ERD50
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
And the studies say that the odds of finding one are slim, and that same FA is unlikely to do well in the future.
I do not care about "reputation", I care about performance. I like the performance of broad based index funds that I buy on my own with low fees.
-ERD50
CRLLS
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Are you looking for ongoing advice or a one-time problem to solve? In addition to the fiduciary question, pricing methods are to be considered. While I don't think I'd ever hand over the management of my portfolio to a FA, I admit to recently engaging a FA at a small 2-3 person firm to create a plan for DW and I on minimizing taxation during retirement. Roth conversions, SS timing, Medicare means testing, withdrawal recommendations are somewhat complicated with a lot of balls to juggle. Any one or two of them I can handle. However there are too many for me to determine a good plan. This is being done on a onetime, fixed fee basis. For me, it is worth the $.
SheitlQueen
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My mother had an account at Edward Jones. About a year before she passed away I started having statements sent to me so I could help her keep track of things. I was shocked at the fees/loads she was paying-and how much her account was being churned.
Run fast and far away.
Run fast and far away.
MRG
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Yes. This parody says it all very well. It's all true! Perhaps a litlle nsfw but Eddie's not safe for you!
ED Jones uses every trick in the book to make your money his!
https://youtu.be/LDyDDBv2HzE
athena53
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Ummm, that's a little over the top and not just because of the NSFW aspect. That certainly does not match my experience with my advisor, even when he WAS with EJ, and my experience with American Funds has been very good or I would have gotten out of them (and did get out of some over the years). There was no account churning. His sole statement on annuities was "If you want an annuity I can sell you one". YMMV- as I said, the actual advisor is key, and even though I'm a 64-year old widow I'm not the clueless LOL portrayed in the video, and my advisor knows it.
REWahoo
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give
Truth is there are good and bad FA's out there. It is debatable whether the bad ones outnumber the good - that's the perception I have.
Regardless, as in any other services you purchase, buyer beware.
Regardless, as in any other services you purchase, buyer beware.
OldShooter
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
To echo others, stay away from Eddie Jones. I am now in the process if helping a good but financially naive friend escape from their clutches. He "thinks" he owns four or five annuities. Ack! Every single one is a ripoff. He has also been ripped off with load funds and 12b1 fees. Granted the recent Department of Labor "fiduciary rule" will make it harder for Eddie to rip people off on retirement funds, the tiger does not change his stripes.
@joeea is correct: Your advisor should be a fiduciary, either a Registered Investment Advisor (Series 65 or 66 license) or an Investment Advisor Representative where the firm is actually the registered advisor. The SEC and FINRA have legal teeth to deal with bad actors in these categories. Go to https://brokercheck.finra.org/ to check out anyone you're thinking of dealing with and make sure they are either an RIA or an IAR.
OK, that said, @joeea's link is a little misleading. The CFP is A Good Thing because it guarantees that: the person has a college degree (maybe in mortuary science, though), a nominal amount of training, a couple years experience in the industry and has passed a test. The CFP is a little like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, though. It is bestowed (sold actually) by a private organization and has no legal standing.
The CFP advertising is quite misleading on this, however. I have studied the issue because I am going to be teaching an Adult Ed investment class next quarter. CFPs are "governed" by the "CFP Rules of Conduct:" https://www.cfp.net/for-cfp-profess...ards-of-professional-conduct/rules-of-conduct An important duty of a fiduciary is the Duty of Loyalty. You will not find the word "loyalty" in those rules and here is why: They want to be able to sell CFP's to Series 7 licensed Registered Representatives, aka "brokers." By definition a "representative" owes his loyalty to his employer, not to his client. Another dead giveaway is this sentence: " ... the Rules are not designed to be a basis for legal liability to any third party." I translate this into plain English as follows: "We're really not very serious about this."
So ... a fiduciary can be a CFP, but not all CFPs are fiduciaries. Be careful out there!
(OK, I can't resist. Here is a really nasty and disgusting Eddie Jones video:
Red Badger
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
+1.
Remember, no one, and I mean NO ONE, is going to care more about your money than you. All FA's have a vested interest in making a portion of your money their money. And, a fair percentage of them will have their interest ahead of yours. I'm stealing this last line from another blog; Those FA's that are both good and completely honest are as rare as baptized rattlesnakes.
flintnational
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OP, IMO there are some things you cannot successfully outsource 100%. Investing is one of those (Your health is another). I think most here would recommend that you educate yourself and do your own investing. This eliminates a layer of costs and goes a long way to preventing fraud and inappropriate investments.
In the alternative, as others have suggested, you can hire a fee only adviser (preferably a fiduciary) that does not sell products but recommends low cost index funds. But even with a fee only adviser, you have to know enough to question his/her advise and to review their performance. And once you know enough, why not do it yourself?
Oh. Stay away from Eddie.
FN
). I think most here would recommend that you educate yourself and do your own investing. This eliminates a layer of costs and goes a long way to preventing fraud and inappropriate investments. In the alternative, as others have suggested, you can hire a fee only adviser (preferably a fiduciary) that does not sell products but recommends low cost index funds. But even with a fee only adviser, you have to know enough to question his/her advise and to review their performance. And once you know enough, why not do it yourself?
Oh. Stay away from Eddie.
FN
Freedom56
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Run away as fast as you can. If you feel you need one at least run a broker check through FINRA. I know several financial advisors. The three that I know, live paycheck to paycheck and have no savings. But they do drive nice cars. Do you really want someone like that to manage your money?
athena53
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DS used to adjust claims for people with totalled autos in his job at a major insurer. One of the most contentious claimants was a guy whose almost-new Cadillac Escalade had burnt to a crisp in a fire at the location where it was being detailed. (DS' employer insured the location where it was being detailed.)
The guy was furious that the money they offered him wouldn't be enough to pay off the loan on his Escalade- in other words, he was upside down. He reminded DS several times, "I am a Certified Financial Planner". DS told me he'd never invest money with a guy who was upside down on a loan for a luxury SUV.
I echo what others have said. Although I have no experience with Edward Jones, I do have experience with financial advisers from reputable companies. They typically say something like this: "For 1% of your portfolio, I will manage it. All you need to do is decide how you want to invest it - stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc".
I don't need a financial adviser to tell me that I need to decide how to invest my money.
In the end, nobody cares more about your money than you do. Read a lot about investing. Even though it seems complicated at first, it really isn't.
I don't need a financial adviser to tell me that I need to decide how to invest my money.
In the end, nobody cares more about your money than you do. Read a lot about investing. Even though it seems complicated at first, it really isn't.
