Do I need a “wealth manager”

[Anonymous]

It doesn’t seem like anything is being managed for you. Put that $10K/year in the market and assuming 8% annual return, you would have about $450K in 20 years.

[Anonymous]

You’re too poor to need a wealth manager. I don’t mean any offense, it’s actually a good thing! Put it in fidelity, set to some target date or index funds and don’t touch it too much. You’ll be fine

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Once you have over $1M with Vanguard you are Flagship which gets you a dedicated phone line. We always found that plus our own knowledge was plenty. $5M+ is Flagship Select which includes even more services.

Are there any services of value?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once you have over $1M with Vanguard you are Flagship which gets you a dedicated phone line. We always found that plus our own knowledge was plenty. $5M+ is Flagship Select which includes even more services.

Are there any services of value?

Not really.

[Anonymous]

1.5 is peanuts in terms of wealth and 10k is a ton in fees for the amount of work/expertise involved. Read up on index funds and boglehead investing for a week and you’ll no longer need an advisor.

[Anonymous]

Good for you for having more than 1 million. That's not easy to do, so I hope you celebrate this and feel good about where you are now.

I agree with another poster that Bogleheads would be good for questions. Also check out the Mr. Money Mustache forums. That helped me become a millionaire and be able to retire early. Someone here will rail against the Money Mustache forums. My suggestion is to visit and make your own opinion.

I use Vanguard and never had a financial manager. I manage my parent's money now, and they have a financial advisors we meet with about four times per year. It's nice to have this person as a sounding board to ensure my parent will have enough, and they've helped with some admin stuff that I'm glad I don't have to do myself.

That said, I never thought I needed to have a wealth manager. Vanguard makes it very easy to manage money, and I've moved most everything there, so it's simple and easy to track.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good for you for having more than 1 million. That's not easy to do, so I hope you celebrate this and feel good about where you are now.

I agree with another poster that Bogleheads would be good for questions. Also check out the Mr. Money Mustache forums. That helped me become a millionaire and be able to retire early. Someone here will rail against the Money Mustache forums. My suggestion is to visit and make your own opinion.

I use Vanguard and never had a financial manager. I manage my parent's money now, and they have a financial advisors we meet with about four times per year. It's nice to have this person as a sounding board to ensure my parent will have enough, and they've helped with some admin stuff that I'm glad I don't have to do myself.

That said, I never thought I needed to have a wealth manager. Vanguard makes it very easy to manage money, and I've moved most everything there, so it's simple and easy to track.

Most people do not need a wealth manager, whatever that means.

Most (90-95%) people need a financial planner in their life. People make sub optimal decisions throughout there life, many of which could be avoided- time, avoidance and ignorance often get in the way.

[Anonymous]

I went into Fidelity to ask some questions and they've been trying to sell me on the "actively managed portfolio" idea.
I'm in a somewhat similar situation, a $2M portfolio and the manager would cost $12k a year.

The selling points so far are:
- much wider selection of funds available to the managers than to me if I was doing it myself
- they have in-house analysts keeping track of larger trends and (hopefully) being able to act before something bad happens versus if I did it myself I'd be reacting
- they claim that their analysts have been able to beat the market consistently
- they claim that they'll be able to limit downside losses with only some loss of potential upside
- they argue that "just put it in index funds" works great when the market is doing well (as recently has been the case) but doesn't work so well if there is a downturn or market volatility

I'm not really sold on it yet but I'm going to look more closely at their record.

[Anonymous]

We are similar, in that we have about 2.7 million and they are trying to get us to pay for the actively managed accounts. I'm sorry, but I'd rather keep those fees invested in my portfolio than give them to someone who *may* make decisions that benefit themselves more than us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went into Fidelity to ask some questions and they've been trying to sell me on the "actively managed portfolio" idea.
I'm in a somewhat similar situation, a $2M portfolio and the manager would cost $12k a year.

The selling points so far are:
- much wider selection of funds available to the managers than to me if I was doing it myself
- they have in-house analysts keeping track of larger trends and (hopefully) being able to act before something bad happens versus if I did it myself I'd be reacting
- they claim that their analysts have been able to beat the market consistently
- they claim that they'll be able to limit downside losses with only some loss of potential upside
- they argue that "just put it in index funds" works great when the market is doing well (as recently has been the case) but doesn't work so well if there is a downturn or market volatility

I'm not really sold on it yet but I'm going to look more closely at their record.

OMG, haven't you been paying attention. Picking winners and losers, market timing, annuity sales. Why don't you find a financial planner, cuz you really need one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went into Fidelity to ask some questions and they've been trying to sell me on the "actively managed portfolio" idea.
I'm in a somewhat similar situation, a $2M portfolio and the manager would cost $12k a year.

The selling points so far are:
- much wider selection of funds available to the managers than to me if I was doing it myself
- they have in-house analysts keeping track of larger trends and (hopefully) being able to act before something bad happens versus if I did it myself I'd be reacting
- they claim that their analysts have been able to beat the market consistently
- they claim that they'll be able to limit downside losses with only some loss of potential upside
- they argue that "just put it in index funds" works great when the market is doing well (as recently has been the case) but doesn't work so well if there is a downturn or market volatility

I'm not really sold on it yet but I'm going to look more closely at their record.

The bolded may be the best reason to have a wealth manager. Namely if you are the type who panic sells when the S and P 500 drops 20%, you need someone who keeps you from doing that. If your view on the other hand is that stock are on sale so you buy more you don't need a wealth manager.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are similar, in that we have about 2.7 million and they are trying to get us to pay for the actively managed accounts. I'm sorry, but I'd rather keep those fees invested in my portfolio than give them to someone who *may* make decisions that benefit themselves more than us.

do you have a lot of time to manage your portfolio and know what to buy? Or just buy any index fund and leave it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are similar, in that we have about 2.7 million and they are trying to get us to pay for the actively managed accounts. I'm sorry, but I'd rather keep those fees invested in my portfolio than give them to someone who *may* make decisions that benefit themselves more than us.

do you have a lot of time to manage your portfolio and know what to buy? Or just buy any index fund and leave it?

NP- it's not normally a single fund, but usually you come up with a target asset allocation, and use 3-4 funds to hit that allocation. Then at most you are rebalancing a couple times per year if there is more growth in one area than another, and the overall mix is moving too far from your targeted allocation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went into Fidelity to ask some questions and they've been trying to sell me on the "actively managed portfolio" idea.
I'm in a somewhat similar situation, a $2M portfolio and the manager would cost $12k a year.

The selling points so far are:
- much wider selection of funds available to the managers than to me if I was doing it myself
- they have in-house analysts keeping track of larger trends and (hopefully) being able to act before something bad happens versus if I did it myself I'd be reacting
- they claim that their analysts have been able to beat the market consistently
- they claim that they'll be able to limit downside losses with only some loss of potential upside
- they argue that "just put it in index funds" works great when the market is doing well (as recently has been the case) but doesn't work so well if there is a downturn or market volatility

I'm not really sold on it yet but I'm going to look more closely at their record.

The bolded may be the best reason to have a wealth manager. Namely if you are the type who panic sells when the S and P 500 drops 20%, you need someone who keeps you from doing that. If your view on the other hand is that stock are on sale so you buy more you don't need a wealth manager.

Yes I think this is the single best reason to have an FA/"wealth manager". The next best reason is if you truly want to devote zero time/energy/attention to it, and it's worth paying someone $10-15k/year to not have to think about it once.

If you are chasing returns, that's not a good reason, because there is zero evidence these types of folks have a record of delivering on that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are similar, in that we have about 2.7 million and they are trying to get us to pay for the actively managed accounts. I'm sorry, but I'd rather keep those fees invested in my portfolio than give them to someone who *may* make decisions that benefit themselves more than us.

do you have a lot of time to manage your portfolio and know what to buy? Or just buy any index fund and leave it?

NP- it's not normally a single fund, but usually you come up with a target asset allocation, and use 3-4 funds to hit that allocation. Then at most you are rebalancing a couple times per year if there is more growth in one area than another, and the overall mix is moving too far from your targeted allocation.

but there are so many different types of funds within one category -- like big cap, small cap, etc.. How do you know which one to get?