[quote=as]So how would a young person start out investing then? Someone who had no savings or investment yet, but wanted to start a monthly investment plan… I guess financial planners these days wouldn’t be interested in working with someone like that? When I started investing 26 years ago, there were numerous financial planners who were willing to help a young person just starting out who had less than $10,000 in assets.
Also, our primary issue with him was how rude and unprofessional he became when we told him we were initially going to invest $25K with him. We even told him we would put more in later.[/quote]
Oh, I totally agree with you about trusting a total stranger to managing money. Not saying not to, but usually this is definitely a referral business.
Here’s the irony though. Assuming a financial advisor is really good and can beat the market consistently, then he/she would be devoting his/here time to managing money for people with a large asset (because it’s more money for him/her). So then who would take the time to manage folks with smaller nest eggs?
Imho, the advisor did you a favor… Assuming you don’t know him (he’s not a relative/friend doing you a favor) if he actually told you he’ll actively manage $25k, it’s almost certain he’s not getting the big whales, which leads me to question how good he really is to begin with.
Note also, the corollary isn’t true eithe : advisors that manage large assets doesn’t necessarily mean they are good either. (Can you say Madoff?)
The young person “starting out” is pretty much on his/her own. Research/read/learn on themselves….Which is why I think we have the economic issues in this country as we have them.
Exceptions where you might consider an advisor are:
1)If you are totally irresponsible financially, then you need an advisor to discipline yourself
2)You really are too busy. But even this, I would argue, that this shouldn’t be an excuse…Being too busy to watch your money is the perfect way to getting cheated. I think that’s what happens with so many famous people….
