Investment Fees and Charges

dunstonh

If they knew what the best investments were they would invest in them themselves , and run their own private fund from their volcano based lair whilst they plotted world domination. I dont believe Dunston does that. Maybe he has a white cat?

I dont have a cat but I do have a donkey that enjoys climbing over me.  I have the bruises to prove it.

You are correct though.   IFAs are not investment managers.   The primary objective is suitability.  Not the highest possible return.   Indeed, most UK consumers shouldn't be aiming for the highest possible return as they don't have the risk profile, investment knowledge and behaviour or capacity for loss to get near that sort of thing.  

Nowadays, IFAs buy in so much of their data and research as its not feasible for small firms to do it in-house and remain compliant to do so.   So, how much goes where tends to be supplied to them from external companies.   Fund research, data and analysis is bought it.   Effectively, what the IFA is doing is using asset allocation models created by others and selecting from funds that others have filtered out the bad and the ugly leaving a much smaller subset to utilise.   You could position the IFA role for investments as a hub for data, research and analysis done by others and then using that info for their clients.      Very different to how it was in the past.

eskbanker

dunstonh said:
I do have a donkey that enjoys climbing over me.

That's no way to talk about one of your most vocal critics on here, even though they haven't gone into full bashing mode on this thread yet....

NottinghamKnight

AnotherJoe said:

Albermarle said:

WhenIGrowUp... said:

ZingPowZing said:

What is your salary, WhenIGrowUp?
Are you comfortable to be hiring someone for £300 per week?

Wow. 

When you put it like that...

On another thread people were discussing their pension investment performance so far this year . It varied from minus 10% to plus around 25% . On a pot of £650K the difference is £227K , or around £4,700 per week . If we take out the extremes and just compare zero growth to an average growth probably around 7% .Then on a pot of £650K the difference between the two is £45K or around £930 per week .
Of course it is not guaranteed that having an IFA will always get you the best investment result , but food for thought maybe?

I think this is a common misconception that they can,  or even aspire to that. IFAs are not there to get you the maximum growth or pick investments that wlil likely outperform others.

They are there to put you in investments that match your risk profile, and also manage tax optimally for you.

If they knew what the best investments were they would invest in them themselves , and run their own private fund from their volcano based lair whilst they plotted world domination. I dont believe Dunston does that. Maybe he has a white cat?

Not many volcanoes in Norfolk, he may have to operate from Grimes Graves. 

Aminatidi

ZingPowZing said:

What is your salary, WhenIGrowUp?
Are you comfortable to be hiring someone for £300 per week?

That's a pretty stark way of highlighting the impact of fees.
@WhenIGrowUp... is the hesitation around not being sure what to do or is it a bit more of a psychological "comfort blanket" which I believe is pretty common when people come into a large sum of money.