Fisher Investment thought

Scallypud

Has anyone had any dealings Fisher Investments. I've been in discussion with them for a week or two and they claim they can do better than my current IFA. They claim to make 10% per annum.
I currently have 412K in my portfolios
Any thoughts?

Croeso69

Scallypud said:

Has anyone had any dealings Fisher Investments. I've been in discussion with them for a week or two and they claim they can do better than my current IFA. They claim to make 10% per annum.
I currently have 412K in my portfolios
Any thoughts?

A bit like St James Place but not quite as expensive.

The claim of 10% is a bit fanciful really.

Personally I would avoid.

dunstonh

 I've been in discussion with them for a week or two and they claim they can do better than my current IFA. 

Have they substantiated that claim?

i.e. have they been given detail of your existing investments and have they run a comparison against theirs and backed up their statement with evidence?    if yes, then it's hard to argue that point.  if no, then it could be all talk.

If they haven't asked you what you have then it is complete BS.   You cannot say one thing is better than another without knowing what the other is.

They claim to make 10% per annum.

There will always be years you can make 10%.  It is the long term average that matters.   Or are they suggesting 10% p.a. is the long term average and if so, at what risk level.

Scallypud

dunstonh said:

 I've been in discussion with them for a week or two and they claim they can do better than my current IFA. 

Have they substantiated that claim?

i.e. have they been given detail of your existing investments and have they run a comparison against theirs and backed up their statement with evidence?    if yes, then it's hard to argue that point.  if no, then it could be all talk.

If they haven't asked you what you have then it is complete BS.   You cannot say one thing is better than another without knowing what the other is.

They claim to make 10% per annum.

There will always be years you can make 10%.  It is the long term average that matters.   Or are they suggesting 10% p.a. is the long term average and if so, at what risk level.

It was hard to take it all in as they bombarded me with facts and figures. They claim to made 10.1% over 20 years per annum.
They was me to complete a letter of authority so they can check out my investments.
Is this safe to do so as i'm always concerned about scams.

Thrugelmir

Crossed their paths once. Not impressed.  In summary. All sales bluster no hard facts.  Smoke and mirrors. Far from transparent.  

stephenadarglas

If you visit finance pages they regularly pop up with 'advice and guidance'.  However, they want your e-mail address first normally.
 

cfw1994

Anyone *promising* to make 10% (or indeed, any number really!) is clearly demonstrating a gross amount of "Sales Puff"...
....& in my personal view, would be shown the door.
Does your current IFA offer any guarantee?   If not, he/she is probably safer than Fisher 

dunstonh

Scallypud said:

dunstonh said:

 I've been in discussion with them for a week or two and they claim they can do better than my current IFA. 

Have they substantiated that claim?

i.e. have they been given detail of your existing investments and have they run a comparison against theirs and backed up their statement with evidence?    if yes, then it's hard to argue that point.  if no, then it could be all talk.

If they haven't asked you what you have then it is complete BS.   You cannot say one thing is better than another without knowing what the other is.

They claim to make 10% per annum.

There will always be years you can make 10%.  It is the long term average that matters.   Or are they suggesting 10% p.a. is the long term average and if so, at what risk level.

It was hard to take it all in as they bombarded me with facts and figures. They claim to made 10.1% over 20 years per annum.
They was me to complete a letter of authority so they can check out my investments.
Is this safe to do so as i'm always concerned about scams.

So, in other words, they don't have a clue about the investments you have and the IFA advised on but say they are better.   Does that sound reasonable to you?
Do yo have the risk profile to invest in a way that is required to potentially generate returns of that level? (most UK consumers do not).

DT2001

I had the hard sell a few years back after I downloaded a retirement guide. They were very pushy, on a regular basis and didn’t like taking no for an answer. I asked for written details of funds etc and they never came up with anything. So I’d avoid.

JohnWinder

I would ask what sort of securities or funds they've invested in for the returns they reported; as noted you might feel they are too risky for you. It might be a second order matter, but I'd ask what are the fees and costs I can expect with a portfolio hoping for 10% return. Fees tend to recur yearly unchanged, but returns can go negative, so you'd like to minimise costs - within the limits of getting good services, paying someone reasonably for their work etc.

redpete

Thought it might be worth adding my recent experience to this old thread.
I've had a couple of conversations with Fisher over the past month or so after downloading something from their website.  I'd sent them my current portfolio and they called back to discuss their analysis of it.  Was a reasonable comparison, but of course showed their option in a good light, compared both with my portfolio and the relevant world index.  Graph showed steady growth above both net of fees, I challenged the chosen start point and asked for a year-by-year comparison.  He had this to hand and their portfolio beat the index maybe 15 years out of 20.
He asked if I was aware that my portfolio covered (something like) 9000+ companies and several thousand securities, as though this was a bad thing, compared with their carefully-selected much smaller range.
Their advisor / salesman was somewhat patronising - "Why would you want to forego £35k a year by sticking with your self-managed portfolio?".
Was useful to see where I was unexpectedly underweight in a couple of sectors which might prompt me to rebalance a bit.