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Professional Finance people no better than amateurs

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  • dunstonh
    dunstonh Posts: 120,208 Forumite
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    darkpool wrote: »
    but what you do is get the clients risk tolerance on a 10 point scale and then use a "model" portfolio provided by another company?

    so your "advice" is basically a copy/paste excercise?

    Correct in relation to sector allocations and that is how it should be. IFAs pay for data, research and information from those that have the resources, expertise and experience in those areas. The adviser still picks the funds but again, third party research is usually used in that as well.

    However, the IFA is still liable for the advice they give even if the data supporting the recommendation comes from another source.
    What your oponents here are talking about is when you don't give advice that pays off for your clients, and costs them dear.

    Advice given by an IFA gets consumer protection. It is guaranteed to be the right advice or the consumer can get redress when it isnt. However, no protection is given for not having a crystal ball.
    I am an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA). The comments I make are just my opinion and are for discussion purposes only. They are not financial advice and you should not treat them as such. If you feel an area discussed may be relevant to you, then please seek advice from an Independent Financial Adviser local to you.
  • atush
    atush Posts: 18,731 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    That misleading comment, even with the smiley, could be taken as read by a newbie.
    It verges on a cheap insult, to say I don't back my arguments with source material. How helpfull is that from somebody with a uni education?

    No newbie would be confused and understand the smiley inless they clicked you and your posing history.

    You do rec gold to every person who walks in here with no detaisl (or disregarding them sometimes). And my take on gold is that is was a great thing to invest in when I did (around 600ish) but was not recommending it once it went over 1400 as I thought it might have a correction. Turns out there were more profits to be had before the correction (which I appreciate as I only sold half of mine) and I say gold should not be more than 10% of anyone's portfolio. I don't beleive in putting too much in any one thing.

    I have seen people buy at the top and lose, like my mom the goldbug did in the 80's. I was forced to sell all her hoarded coins at a loss as her executor in 2001.
  • DiggerUK
    DiggerUK Posts: 4,992 Forumite
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    dunstonh wrote: »
    ....Advice given by an IFA gets consumer protection. It is guaranteed to be the right advice or the consumer can get redress when it isnt. However, no protection is given for not having a crystal ball.

    It's not crystal balls that is being asked for here, it's having the non crystal balls to give financial advice.
    That is something financial advisers have the undeserved reputation for doing, ("go see a financial adviser") but in reality don't do.

    If I get a can of soup that gives me food poisoning, I have recompense for a bad product.
    If a financial adviser loses somebodies money by selling them a bad financial product.....hey client, tough....I followed all the rules.
    ..._
  • DiggerUK
    DiggerUK Posts: 4,992 Forumite
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    Lokolo wrote: »
    My point is very valid. You recommend those 3 investments to everyone without any background into the person........
    What the hell has someones background got to do with a good investment.
    This background nonsense is financial adviser horse....
    A good investment, is a good investment.
    atush wrote: »
    No newbie would be confused and understand the smiley inless they clicked you and your posing history.You do rec gold to every person who walks in here with no detaisl (or disregarding them sometimes).....

    My "posing" history is on the record, and I have been right with both gold and NSI Index Linked.
    Unlike financial advisers who have been spectacularly wrong, and consistently spineless, with their tainted advice.

    Anyway as it is Friday, I'm off out for a steak and beer night.
    Ta Ta.
    ..._
  • I see this as a bit of a downer for any argument supporting the trail commission. Whilst I think it was set up as pure greed and a backhander when people weren't so savvy, it has been defended as being somehow necessary because investments need monitoring. But if we accept that argument, then you would expect the investment to perform because surely there were shares which went up when the ones they sold you went down. Only you didn't get to hear about them and all the essential monitoring didn't flush them out either.

    Does your builder come around for a slice of your house valuation every year ? No, it is harder to get mugged by the front pocket.
  • DiggerUK wrote: »
    What the hell has someones background got to do with a good investment.
    This background nonsense is financial adviser horse....
    A good investment, is a good investment.

    eh ? For someone in it for the long term, and who understands volatility, a good investment is probably something which grows rapidly on average, despite large fluctuations along the way (since drops are just buying opportunities). Similarly for someone doing it just for a bit of fun with money they don't absolutely need.

    For someone who needs the money in 5 years time, the same investment is a bad idea because their pot could easily have halved in value at the point they need to withdraw.

    For someone who needs a reliable income stream, that's not a good approach either.

    And for someone who freaks out if they see the markets fall, that same investment won't suit them because they'll sell at the bottom and then stay in cash, or rebuy well after the start of the recovery. They need something less volatile even if they're in it for the long term.
  • BobQ
    BobQ Posts: 11,181 Forumite
    Ninth Anniversary 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    The OP has a point.

    I concede that if you are openly investing in S&S the issues of the risks that you are willing and able to take arise and so its unfair to criticise IFAs, even if some have given bad advice.

    Endowments are a very different issue. Ordinary people were persuaded to buy these products over a long timescale on the basis that it would pay off their mortgages with the possibility that it might return a little more. That so many found out that it would not even pay off their mortgage is a scandal. Those taking on these products did not see themselves as "investors", they were just trusting the financial services industry to invest their money in a professional manner to pay their mortgages. History will judge that the industry was largely incompetent and let them down. It has certainly contributed to many people's mistrust of the industry.
    Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are incapable of forming such opinions.
  • pqrdef
    pqrdef Posts: 4,552 Forumite
    The mis-selling scandal that got away, really. It had the reek of a racket at the time.

    Designed by the City for the benefit of the City. Who design everything to maximise the amount they squeeze out in commissions and fees and leave the customer with the least they can get away with.

    Basically, with an endowment mortgage, you were borrowing to invest. Not normally recommended. With a brilliant investment or a 0% BT to stooze, maybe, though you can still lose money you haven't got. But borrowing from a mortgage lender to invest in an endowment fund? How was that ever going to work out well?
    "It will take, five, 10, 15 years to get back to where we need to be. But it's no longer the individual banks that are in the wrong, it's the banking industry as a whole." - Steven Cooper, head of personal and business banking at Barclays, talking to Martin Lewis
  • 2010
    2010 Posts: 5,513 Forumite
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    Anyone who goes to an IFA can expect to be relieved of a large part of their investment whether the "advice" they receive is good, bad or indifferent.

    Where any product is commission driven it`s widely open to abuse and often is.

    It`s common sense that if an IFA has two products to sell and one of them pays a larger amount of commission/fees, then that`s the one to push.

    The IFA has no idea how any product will perform in the future only how it has in the past.

    That basically sums up IFA, and yes amateurs could do just as well and save a fortune doing so.
  • dunstonh
    dunstonh Posts: 120,208 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Anyone who goes to an IFA can expect to be relieved of a large part of their investment whether the "advice" they receive is good, bad or indifferent.

    How would you know. You have never seen one.
    Where any product is commission driven it`s widely open to abuse and often is.

    Yet no evidence of widespread abuse has ever been found.
    It`s common sense that if an IFA has two products to sell and one of them pays a larger amount of commission/fees, then that`s the one to push.

    How would you know. You have never seen one. Please explain how that works with agreed remuneration?
    The IFA has no idea how any product will perform in the future only how it has in the past.

    How would you know. You have never seen one.
    That basically sums up IFA, and yes amateurs could do just as well and save a fortune doing so.

    How would you know. You have never seen one.
    I am an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA). The comments I make are just my opinion and are for discussion purposes only. They are not financial advice and you should not treat them as such. If you feel an area discussed may be relevant to you, then please seek advice from an Independent Financial Adviser local to you.
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