Financial Advisor

doubleJackD

gadgetmind wrote: »

No-one has to justify what they earn as ultimately the market will decide what they are worth.

I paid a VAT adviser over £2k per hour for a two hour consult and they saved me about £225k. Money well spent. £300 per hour (and no, most don't charge that) for a few hours of advice that could improve my retirement plans would well be worth it.

If you don't like the price, keep your hands in your pockets.

fair enough, if i was thinking of going to a VAT adviser and he had references from past customers saying he had saved them big money I would be getting my cheque book out.

However the advice seen on this forum from IFAs is typically "here are a list of 10 unit trusts, invest in them" or even "here is a nice Aviva bond, they are very good". I'm not going to pay even 30 pounds an hour for that.

doubleJackD

markwilkinson wrote: »

I know very little about the subject. I paid an IFA once, which was to do with a mortgage. Can't complain about the advice given and the work she did.

Having admitted I know jack all about IFA's I would say that Dunstonh seems decent. I havnt posted much in my time on MSE but I've read a lot. To my mind anyone prepared to have a go at giving basic advice, for free, is a good guy.

Listen to him.

when i was thinking of getting a new car i got a nice free cup of coffee and a free run in the car. I really couldn't believe how nice the car sales people were

gadgetmind

dunstonh wrote: »

Their SIPP isnt great value for DIY

Their SIPP is fine for a single Vanguard Lifestrategy fund and their ISA isn't exactly a terrible place for a basket of ITs, equities, bonds and gilts due to the £45pa cap on the 0.5% charges. (This cap is £200 in a SIPP, so other options are better.)

At further risk of being an apologist for HL (which I'm really not!) while their fees aren't exactly low, they will be lower than many of their clients have paid in the past when investing via IFAs.

Oneoftheoldies

If W5Moss believes he is paying the financial advisor £2000 per year just to manage a portfolio of £40,000 then surely it can only be worthwhile if he is getting an income, or increase in value of the portfolio of over 5% p.a. on the fund (i.e. £2,000). (Or have I missed the point by quickly skimming the above posts?!)

dunstonh

Oneoftheoldies wrote: »

If W5Moss believes he is paying the financial advisor £2000 per year just to manage a portfolio of £40,000 then surely it can only be worthwhile if he is getting an income, or increase in value of the portfolio of over 5% p.a. on the fund (i.e. £2,000). (Or have I missed the point by quickly skimming the above posts?!)

Its £134k and £1340 pa as the charge.

jem16

dunstonh wrote: »

Its £134k and £1340 pa as the charge.

Is it not £174k? Pension £134k plus £40k funds portfolio?

So £1740pa as the charge?

jamesd

w5moss, looks too expensive and using just one fund is not a good thing for an IFA to be doing. Best to shop around a bit more.

I'd suggest that someone take a look at a Jupiter Merlin fund range if they wanted it done without an IFA. I don't expect an IFA to be doing things like that and for the amount of money you have I wouldn't be keen on just one fund whatever the one fund is.

So I think that you're getting offered neither a good price nor the standard of work that I expect from an IFA with that amount of money involved.

doubleJackD wrote: »

However the advice seen on this forum from IFAs is typically "here are a list of 10 unit trusts, invest in them"

Please provide a link to two posts in say the last year where an IFA has provided a list of ten or more named funds and said buy them. It's "usually" done so that should be a pretty quick task to find a couple of examples, right?

The non-IFAs tend to be more specific in identifying named funds that they think are worth a look but even there it does tend to be "worth a look" or "I like the look of" rather than "go out and buy without more investigation".

gadgetmind

jamesd wrote: »

I'd suggest that someone take a look at a Jupiter Merlin fund range if they wanted it done without an IFA.

Despite their truly eye-watering TERs?

Out of the frying pan and into the fire!

jamesd

The TERs are a bit high but they do their job for people who don't want to do asset allocation and rebalancing and who can't justify paying an IFA because of the amounts of money involved.

A FTSE or MSCI World tracker is another option that might be interesting for some.

gadgetmind

I don't have a problem with portfolio funds, nor with the asset allocation being tactically managed, and not even with them being a fund of funds. In fact, I hold one such fund myself, but the TER is 0.5% showing that such management can be done for a reasonable cost.