Stifel and Voya Financial

[misanman]

I usually try to avoid offering financial advice to friends and family but BIL has investments with an advisor who uses Stifel and a 401k managed by Voya. I'm not really familiar with either of these companies. He's unhappy with the results from the Stifel advisor and wanted to know if he could move them to Voya.

From what I can tell, Voya specializes in managing retirement funds for employers. I'm not sure if you can have an individual, personal, account with them.

Does anyone have any personal experience with either Stifel or Voya?

I'm tempted to point him to Fidelity/Vanguard/Schwab and a two or three fund portfolio but worried that things could go badly. He told me he doesn't want to manage it himself.

 

[Dash man]

I usually try to avoid offering financial advice to friends and family but BIL has investments with an advisor who uses Stifel and a 401k managed by Voya. I'm not really familiar with either of these companies. He's unhappy with the results from the Stifel advisor and wanted to know if he could move them to Voya.



From what I can tell, Voya specializes in managing retirement funds for employers. I'm not sure if you can have an individual, personal, account with them.



Does anyone have any personal experience with either Stifel or Voya?



I'm tempted to point him to Fidelity/Vanguard/Schwab and a two or three fund portfolio but worried that things could go badly. He told me he doesn't want to manage it himself.

I had Voya for my 401k when I had an employer, but rolled it into IRA and Roth IRA when I left. I don’t recall them having options for retail customers. They were great for the 401k I had.

 

[Winemaker]

During the financial crisis of 2008-9, my company's 401k choices for fixed income were non existent. I move some money to Merrill Lynch for fixed income purposes. The guy I worked with eventually left Merrill, and he went to Stifel. Never been happier with the switch, doing real well with fixed end of portfolio. Stifel is ++++ for me.

 

[pacergal]

I had Voya for my 401k when I had an employer, but rolled it into IRA and Roth IRA when I left. I don’t recall them having options for retail customers. They were great for the 401k I had.

Same here.

 

[Car-Guy]

My 401k is with VOYA and I'm pretty happy with them. Like everything there are few things I'd like to see different but nobody is prefect.. Well almost nobody.

 

[Spock]

Dad had IRAs with ING->Voya... that the salesman had wrapped into annuities... but neither were ever annuitized. Statements were incomprehensible. I rolled them to Fidelity by giving Fido the Voya account info and having Fido do the transfer.

 

[misanman]

Had an online meeting with BIL to discuss the poor performance of his Stifel account. His advisor had him 50% fixed income (and some cash) and 50% equities. As you might expect, the fixed income was all bond funds that got clobbered when rates went up.

So, is it reasonable to expect that his financial advisor should have steered clear of this? Or is this just conventional investment wisdom put into practice?

Because the bond funds sunk in value, the account appears to have been automatically rebalanced earlier this year - selling equities and buying more bond funds. So he is back to 50/50 but the total value of the account is down.

 

[Sunset]

Had an online meeting with BIL to discuss the poor performance of his Stifel account. His advisor had him 50% fixed income (and some cash) and 50% equities. As you might expect, the fixed income was all bond funds that got clobbered when rates went up.

So, is it reasonable to expect that his financial advisor should have steered clear of this? Or is this just conventional investment wisdom put into practice?

Because the bond funds sunk in value, the account appears to have been automatically rebalanced earlier this year - selling equities and buying more bond funds. So he is back to 50/50 but the total value of the account is down.

I can imagine, a client says: " I don't want to lose any money"
So an advisor feels a lot of pressure to be in bond funds (prior to what we now see as a historically bad thought that bond funds don't lose value).

That's probably how he ended up 50/50.

 

[jazz4cash]

So, is it reasonable to expect that his financial advisor should have steered clear of this? Or is this just conventional investment wisdom put into practice?

No, I think it’s typical conventional wisdom unless the investor is savvy enough to direct the FA otherwise.

 

[sturge]

My employer 401K was with Voya. Wasn't bad but had limited choices like most 401K's. I retired Dec 2022 and rolled it all into my TD Ameritrade IRA

 

[misanman]

Update: BIL is now considering Vanguard Personal Advisor. Seems likely that there could be forum members who have used this service. What do you think?

He also got an analysis by an advisor who works with Raymond James. Pretty in depth but seems like it's rather traditional advice at rather traditional fees.