Katsmeow
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2009
- Messages
- 5,308
I know exactly what is in my accounts, but as I said I am not comfortable putting out my info to total strangers. I understand ya'll are trying to help me, but this is not the way. If I am paying to much in fees I will discuss this with my FA. I am not in the position to take out my money and put it somewhere else without getting my monthly dividends.
I can you the names of the funds.
I can understand not wanting to put out here exactly how much you have in each account. Another way to do it is to show the percentages.
AS I understand it there are basically 5 kinds of fees you can have (maybe there are more but these are the ones I can think of).
1. A fee you directly pay your FA. In your case it sounds like it is 1%. That isn't highway robbery, exactly, but is for many people a waste of money. You seem to think that the FA brings added value, but for many people who come here they could do just as well on their own. This is often because they use index funds and there just isn't that much that an FA can do. The idea that an FA can identify what funds will do well in the future is one that many people will reject.
2. The expense ratio of your fund itself. Most of our money is at Vanguard and I think our expense ratio is around .20. I haven't looked up all your funds but most non-index funds have higher expense ratios.
3. A front end load (sales fee) you pay to buy some funds. You would need to check into this on the funds you already own.
4. The same as 3 but one you pay when you sell a fund.
5. Commissions or fees to execute a trade. This is how churning an account ends up costing a lot of people. Every time they sell and buy something else they pay a fee. Do you pay a fee for trades? If so, what is that fee?
How often does your FA have you sell something and buy something else? What kind of fee does that generate? Why are you selling and buying something else.