| Investing in the stock market is tricky to say the least | | | | managers. You should at least receive quarterly |
| and it's getting trickier as time goes by. Heck, most | | | | reports that explain how well your investments are |
| major investment banking houses hire entire divisions | | | | doing. You should also expect to speak to your |
| full of mathematicians and theoretical physicists... | | | | financial adviser at least once a year, and preferably |
| theoretical physicists! How can I expect to handle my | | | | once per quarter. |
| own finances and invest in the stock market with any | | | | A financial adviser is not somebody that you call up |
| degree of certainty when I'm going up against | | | | and talk to often because many times these guys |
| theoretical physicists and mathematicians? | | | | have 50 to 100 different clients and they just simply |
| One answer to this problem is to simply hire a money | | | | don't have the time to speak to each of them on a |
| manager and if you have considerable assets, at least | | | | daily or even weekly basis. Once or twice a year is |
| $250,000-$500,000 or more, then this may make | | | | normal and in fact that's what you'll need in order to |
| sense for you. But most people don't know what to | | | | discuss the new year and any changes that need to |
| expect when it comes to hiring a money manager and | | | | be made to your investment strategy or financial |
| that is exactly what I'm going to talk about in this article | | | | situation. |
| today. | | | | Also, when you first set up your account you can |
| First of all, what exactly should you expect to have to | | | | expect to meet with your adviser to set up a basic |
| pay a money manager? Usually they will charge you | | | | financial plan that is closely tailored to your needs. Most |
| an annual fee that won't be more than 1.5% of the | | | | of advisers won't create custom plans for each client |
| value of your stock investments under their | | | | because they have too many clients (unless you give |
| management. Most managers and financial advisers | | | | them significant amounts of money like several million |
| will also charge you a minimum fee of about $1,000 | | | | dollars), instead their firm will have created several |
| per year and that makes sense because there are | | | | financial plans that relate to several different broad |
| simple administrative fees that will need to be covered | | | | categories of people and hopefully you'll fall into one of |
| such as printing reports and managing paperwork and | | | | those broad categories and they will simply use one of |
| paying secretaries to answer your phone calls to them | | | | those template financial plans for you under most |
| etc. | | | | circumstances. You can expect to have this all |
| The good news is that fees will usually be on a sliding | | | | explained to you during your initial meeting when you're |
| scale that decreases as your investments increase. | | | | setting up your account. |
| So the more money you invest the cheaper it | | | | Hopefully this article has helped shed some light on the |
| becomes to pay your financial adviser. | | | | mystery that is financial advisers and money |
| What sort of services should you expect from your | | | | managers. If your investment portfolio is large enough, |
| financial adviser? Well they will all differ but you can | | | | then it often makes good sense to find yourself a |
| expect these basic services from most money | | | | financial adviser as soon as possible. |