Anyone have any experience with this service with them?

If so, satisfied or no.

I have part of my retirement funds with the Fidelity equivalent.

They are less aggressive than I normally am (and subsequently lower returns) and this is why I went this way.

The fee is based on a percentage of your average balance with the percentage decreasing as the balance increases.

Is this an actual personal service, or is a cookie-cutter thing run by a computer algorithm?

Yes. Excellent (and free depending on value of portfolio.) 45 minutes of advice. No pressure to change your holdings. You fill out a comprehensive questionnaire ahead of time so they can assess your goals, risk tolerance, etc.

They also have a full service where they will actively manage your portfolio for a fixed %. Don't recall how cost is computed.

Wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of it.

Yes sjtill.



Thanks RogB,

I am glad to hear that.

Not myself but a good friend who I reviewed my own personal finances with before deciding to stay unemployed.

He's a retired accountant. He's good with numbers. He uses Fidelity service that suggests a portfolio mix for him. He's satisfied. Not sure if he pays an additional fee for that service, I forget.

I know they've been known for good quality low-cost funds. If I didn't have a different philosophy or bent, I would have considered them strongly.

I spoke to them about it. I didn't get the impression that it was all that different than the "free hour" every so "now-and-again" that I get due to my balance. It's a psychological shortcoming of mine that I seem unable to pay thousands a year for someone to advise me on my money. It's why I'm in Vanguard. I have mine in index and target funds (targeting a later retirement than I truly intend, in order to pump the risk/reward ration and not get too heavy on bonds). All that as advised by the free Vanguard resource. I think I can set that call up a few times a year. Which is more than I want. Set and forget is my thing. Worked out well all my life except perhaps 2008. But if I were pulling out at every big dip, I'd be in bigger trouble than having ridden that wave.

If you own mutual funds or index funds, you are paying for management already. Read the prospectus or reports to see how much.

I have some training and experience in securities analysis, good old Graham and Dodd stuff albeit short of anything like CFA requirements, and none of this new efficient market hypothesis stuff. I can sit down with several years financial statements of a company and reach an opinion of value that is rational at least. What one is looking for is a mispricing between the price of that stock and this rational value which may be corrected in the future. IOW, you can buy for 40 cents what looks to be a dollar.

What I cannot do is analyze a fund’s statements and form an opinion about its prospects, relative to other funds. I don’t know of any rational way to do that. Attempts to do so are bogus sales nonsense, excited assurances of future glory, it seems to me.

There may be some out there among investment advisors who are actually investment trained, but all the ones I saw in my time in that industry were sales people. They speak the lingo but lack the training and experience to assess merits and faults in potential choices, spend their time calling on prospects rather than analyzing potential investments.

To answer the OP's question, my wife and I use Vanguard's fee-based personal advisor service and we are satisfied with it.

We understand that our advisor uses a Vanguard algorithm and that the advice we get is tempered by Vanguard's overall buy and hold philosophy.

Could we perform the same services on our own behalf? Given enough time and effort, the answer is yes. However, we have other things we would prefer to focus on, and thus feel the fee is worth it in terms of the peace of mind we get knowing that a professional who adheres to Vanguard's code of ethics and fiduciary responsibility is looking after our portfolio.

I've been with Fidelity since the 90's. With a certain amount of money invested through their account (can't remember how much it is) you get an adviser and usually an assistant. You can talk with them as many times as you like and although they won't manage your portfolio for you, they will make suggestions based on the info you provide about your needs and expectations. I usually meet with them twice a year for a portfolio review. Two to four hours is usual for these reviews, and we've been treated to lunch a few times.

These advisers are not paid commissions although when recommending funds they will list Fidelity funds first. But you can buy and keep in their account funds, stocks, ETFs, CD ladders etc from any number of outside firms like Vanguard, Boston Partners etc, usually without fees. Stock trades are a flat $7.50. Ultimately, you decide where your money is invested so you need to keep up on things. But, if you have questions or need a little guidance, the consultants are easy to access.

Fidelity also offers paid consultants that will completely manage your portfolio for you and the cost is based on your balance. The more you have invested the lower the fee. I think the minimum is $100,000 which is billed at 2%-3% annually.

I'm guessing other investment companies offer similar programs so maybe shop around a bit. Fidelity is one of the largest and well respected in the industry. Every experience I've had with the Fidelity people has been positive.

Rogue, it would not be "thousands" a year in this case. It would cost about $400 annually for the management per $100k.

After my call to them about it I am iffy about it and is why I am asking if anyone is using it. The cost does not seem excessive so it could be worth a try.

Yes Jallen I hear you. In this case I like their idea more than the conventional for hire go brokeage house advisor. I just trust Vanguard more based on my dealing with them.

At this point i am just thinking a different and more knowledgble set of eyes in this field might be helpful to determine if where I am headed is where I want to be heading at this particular juncture.

In case anyone is interested is this service. Or wondered if I went forward with this.

We did inquire. Went through a series of phone and video chats with them. Here is what I can say.

It was pretty easy.
They were very professional.
No bs sales type stuff.
Asked questions and listened.
Answered all questions we had.
Made their presentation tailored to our situation.
Everything made sense.
Cost for the service was spelled out simply.
No hidden fee's, etc.


The greatest benefit in our mind was the going through the process to help determine.

What we would need in retirement.
How long we would likely have it.
When my wife could retire.
Establishing our risk tolerance at this point.
What we can likely expect from our account over given time frames.
The role SS will likely play for us.

Granted I felt like we knew or at least had a good idea to answers of the above questions. But now we have a better feel for them.

So we decided to use their service. Portfolio has been modified. I cannot say with any certainty that this will prove to improve our situation greatly. But at the very least I feel like we understand why we went through the process. Feel like the process was very beneficial as I spelled out above. I have a suspicion that it will prove out to be a positive help with our financial future.

Btw, you can opt out at any time. No cost or penalty.

I have been a Vanguard client for many years. They continue to prove to me that they are a good company.


For anyone interested. Thx, orc

This message has been edited. Last edited by: old rugged cross,

I suppose this is as good a time as any to confess that I have been compelled by my situation to give up my approach, owning individual stocks selected as bargains. I no longer have the ability to keep up with these things, and pretty soon it will fall to my wife and others, none of whom are in a position to do so either.

After considerable reading, I could never come up with away to value funds and ETFs, or estimate which might be more likely to be more satisfactory in the long run than others. Very frustrating!

I finally picked Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, for the very low cost (.04%), and am in the process of selling all the stocks, except Realty Income, buying VOO with the proceeds.

J, I think you and your family will be pleased with V.

Two words. Fidelity Contra fund.
Week after week, month after month, year after year, it continues to beat the S&P 500 index by an appreciable margin. And during the ‘07 to ‘09 economic slump, suffered less of a loss than the S&P 500 benchmark.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
I suppose this is as good a time as any to confess that I have been compelled by my situation to give up my approach, owning individual stocks selected as bargains. I no longer have the ability to keep up with these things, and pretty soon it will fall to my wife and others, none of whom are in a position to do so either.

After considerable reading, I could never come up with away to value funds and ETFs, or estimate which might be more likely to be more satisfactory in the long run than others. Very frustrating!

I finally picked Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, for the very low cost (.04%), and am in the process of selling all the stocks, except Realty Income, buying VOO with the proceeds.

thanks for this disclosure

i feel like most people eventually get to that point with investing - pick a few 'favored' long term stocks and the rest in quality low cost mutual funds

i have some ETFs but mainly becuase I bought them in big blocks - 'one time purchases' from a brokerage account. the auto monthly investments still go into mutual funds like Vanguard Extended Market


-------------------------------------

quote:

Originally posted by Sig209:

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
I suppose this is as good a time as any to confess that I have been compelled by my situation to give up my approach, owning individual stocks selected as bargains. I no longer have the ability to keep up with these things, and pretty soon it will fall to my wife and others, none of whom are in a position to do so either.

After considerable reading, I could never come up with away to value funds and ETFs, or estimate which might be more likely to be more satisfactory in the long run than others. Very frustrating!

I finally picked Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, for the very low cost (.04%), and am in the process of selling all the stocks, except Realty Income, buying VOO with the proceeds.

thanks for this disclosure

i feel like most people eventually get to that point with investing - pick a few 'favored' long term stocks and the rest in quality low cost mutual funds

I was an investment manager in real life, but have been reduced by old age and the ravages of decrepitude to the point that I have to admit I wasn’t really getting the job done in recent years, and my heirs and devisees won’t be either for the most part.