TU-Online

waldguy:

I think many people entrust money to advisors because they don’t have the confidence, or they have little interest, or they believe the advice is automatically going to be superior coming from a “professional.” Only a few think outside the institutional box. I think they should make money only when they make money for their clients.

Talk to your advisor about the mechanism. Don’t be afraid to simply tell him that you’ve decided to say, “Thanks for your past advice but I’m confident I’ve learned enough to manage things on my own and I’d like to take control of my account.”

And don’t fear handling things yourself if you’ve got a bit of a mind and interest in doing your research. Good advisors are really tough to find. They love to collect your fees while underperforming, in most cases.

Most transfers of securities are quite simple from one account to another. Just ask for the forms to move your securities or mutual funds to the account where you already have investments.

J Safire:

It sounds like you have a bad FA who works for a crappy firm. You can transer securities held in an account to a different firm without selling them, that is no problem.

You might not want to hear this, but the era of do-it-yourself, look it up online investing is OVER. Now more that ever, sound financial advice and guidance is at a premium. Pick an FA who has experience and works for a high-grade institution which will reach out to you with top of the line research and actionable pro-active ideas. FA’s who work for insurance companies and the disount shops (Schwab, Fidelity, Ameriprise..) are to be avoided at all costs.