THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ONE TRUSTS THEIR MONEY TO SOMEONE ELSE TO MANAGE. IS THERE ANY GOOD NEWS HERE?
Gen:
Sorry to hear about your experience but IMO, your statement is NOT accurate. It would be better read as “this is what happens when one trusts their money to the WRONG PERSON to manage”.
Picking an advisor is a pretty painstaking process of background checks through various sites such as:
You should also ask for no less than 6 references of longer term clients and actually call them and inquire about their experience.
IMO, you should be aware that just as most investors cannot beat the market, so too is the experience with the average broker.
But some have special access to detailed investment reports or have actual access to the company’s principles and make visits to the companies and checks their channel sales, etc.
Furthermore and not to appear to be preaching to you, what you give your broker as a guideline for investment (growth, high risk, preservation of capital, income, etc.) will also affect the investment strategy and the annual return.
Just because on portfolio yielded 40% and the other 1% doesn’t mean they were equivalent strategies or that in a down market, the portfolio returns could have strongly favored the opposite conclusion.
As a last comment, I have often referred to the “effort related returns”…know thyself…if you enjoy being tied to your computer and building/maintaining spreadsheets…then this board is a great place for you. But remember also, this board has NOT been through a bear market yet…I will predict that when that occurs, it could get a little testy around here.
IMO, diversifying amongst several approaches can be very liberating and reduces stress…SPY or mutuals, brokerage accounts (that has been properly vetted), your own investments, etc…just never favored the everything in a single basket approach…but then you may prefer to concentrate your strategy and risk…your call of course.